Guardian
by Trinity Destler
Summary: It doesn't turn out to be your garden variety protection detail.
1. Disappearing Act

1. Disappearing Act

.

It wasn't like he'd been labouring under an illusion that work was being done. So, when Fornell marched back down from the Director's office with his entourage and all of Gibbs' agents were studies in disinterested nonchalance, he was hardly surprised. Neither could he prevent a certain smugness entering his expression as the FBI and Friends bore down on him wearing universally grim frowns.

"Oh, this must be serious," he observed, a smirk in his voice.

Fornell's frown deepened, the crease of consternation between his furrowed eyebrows practically a chasm.

"It is," Fornell inclined his head slightly, "You'll think so too when I tell you what it concerns."

Gibbs leaned back, spreading his hands, "You waiting for me to announce you or...?" he ticked his head toward the elevator, his chin raised in silent question.

Fornell dropped a closed file onto Gibbs' desk, "You'll want your team in on this."

Their heads came up like a pack of prairie dogs, their faces asking him whether they should close ranks. Gibbs made a subtle gesture that kept them in their seats, but they were no longer pretending not to hang on every word of the conversation. He nodded for the delegation from the Bureau to continue.

"Two men recently escaped from supermax security at Mississippi State Penitentiary. They were members of an elite mercenary club, real exclusive: ran guns, drugs, hostages, technology, you name it- they did it. Anything anyone was willing to pay for, they were willing to get. They were also effective and efficient assassins responsible for the deaths of more then twenty civilians, four military officers, and two federal agents. Thirteen men were wounded and two killed the day they originally brought them down."

"What does this have to do with me, Tobias?"

"The FBI's finest believe that Abigail Sciuto will be their next target."

This proclamation had effectively the same impact on the squad room as a swift kick to an ant hill. Gibbs stood and his teeth came together with an audible clack. Tony was out of his chair and around his desk so quickly that he practically a blur: moving from slouched in his seat to standing in take-off position at the edge of their partitioned area, holstered weapon in hand, in less than ten seconds. Ziva was instantly at Gibbs' side, also anticipating instruction and geared up. McGee was bringing up security footage from the lab to reassure them all that nothing untoward had yet befallen their forensics whiz.

The appearance of Abby's silent figure on the plasma screen- bent over a microscope and blissfully unaware of their eyes on her- defused the tension only enough for Gibbs' eyes to slide back to Fornell and for Ziva to speak, clipped and business-like.

"Who are these men, who trained them?"

"And why are they after Abby?" Tony's voice was even and calm, but pitched noticeably lower than normal.

"We don't know, Officer David, but they were good." Fornell glanced over his shoulder at Tony, "They were put away based primarily on forensic evidence, DiNozzo. Sciuto's first conviction as an expert witness for the state of Louisiana. They've already hit two former employees of the private lab she worked for at the time, both of whom testified at the trial, and we have reason to believe they're saving her for last."

"Yeah," Gibbs voice was dangerous, "What reason?"

The FBI agents exchanged knowing glances and Fornell sighed, "One of these dirtbags developed a fixation on Abby's testimony, kept saying her conclusion was flawed. He wrote rebuttals to the lab disputing everything she'd said, none of it with the slightest grounds. The scene of their latest murder mimicked a scene she analysed years ago and they annotated the walls with personal questions and accusations. They're trying to play head games with her, show how much they know about her, how vulnerable she is- we didn't figure we'd indulge them by letting her in on it all. Doesn't matter. What matters is they know that Miss Sciuto now works for NCIS, where her lab is, where her home is, the details of her routines, and her closest associates. They're preparing to infiltrate. Don't think battening down the hatches will keep them out either, Jethro. Covert breach of military security is a day in the park for these guys. That's what they got paid for."

Gibbs stood absolutely still for a moment which lasted a lifetime, a stricken look in his frost blue eyes. Finally, time started moving again, "McGee, you bring up everything you can on these bastards; Ziva, use your contacts, try to find out where they are now and what kind of fire-power they're using; DiNozzo, come here."

He crossed the room in long, quick strides, buzzing with energy, "Yeah, boss."

"Tony," Gibbs was practically nose to nose with him, intensely serious, "you take Abby and you disappear."

"Boss?" the senior agent was mildly stunned.

Gibbs nodded, "You have two hours to get whatever you need. Expense it- yes, _anything_- then you come back to get her and you disappear her. Clean break, get a head start, then you contact us for the safe house and the deep covers. You know how long those take, get in touch with me _then_. Go."

"Abby won't... should I-?"

"She's with you," he interrupted, grabbing Tony's shoulder roughly, "She's always with you, from when you take her out of this building on, she is never out of your reach. Not sight, Tony: _reach_. Clear?"

"Clear. I'm going badgeless and dark, but we use our real ID until the covers go through- subtle approach. We'll run on cash until I feel good about our situation, watch my personal credit card, a charge will show up there before I make first contact. Abby's cards will never show up. Abby's card shows up, worry. I use my expense account after today, that's a mayday. Clear?"

"Crystal. Go."

"On it."

Ziva stared from her place at her desk, phone in hand. "Gibbs-"

"What was that?" McGee pointed after Tony's disappearance into the elevator, aghast and stunned. "We have protection specialists-"

"Weren't you listening to me, McGee?" Fornell interrupted, looking unsurprised by any of the new developments, "The people after your Miss Sciuto are adept at breaking through protective custody. That's _their_ speciality."

"Tony isn't her detail," Gibbs clarified quietly. "Tony is an expert in _not being_ whoever it is you're looking for."

McGee didn't look satisfied, "But why-"

"He disappears _well_, McGee, and he must have a rabbit's foot crammed up his ass with the crap he's pulled through without a scratch. She'll be safe."

Ziva put her phone down, the prim set of her mouth and her back-thrust shoulders a good indication she was about to beg to differ. "Not that I doubt you, Gibbs, but I have been trained-"

"I need you here," his tone warned her not to bother trying to argue. "We've still got to catch the bastards. DiNozzo blends into middle America when he feels like it, you don't. Before you go back to the phone get downstairs, take Abby to autopsy and brief her, Ducky too. Tell him to fit out a first aid kit for them. Give him something to do."

McGee jumped up again, "Boss, why don't I-"

"You're busy. Siddown."

"We couldn't at least wait until we have more information, covers set up...?"

"Fornell's right, these aren't people to screw around with."

"I appreciate that, Gibbs."

The FBI agent received a harsh glare. "The sooner she's not where they expect her to be, the better."

,.;.,

"You have to wash your face and braid your hair, too."

Abby stared at the neatly folded pile of clothes in Tony's arms (none of them even remotely any fun and none of them even very nice, which was weird because if there was one thing Tony never exaggerated about it was the quality of his eye for bitching threads) and raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. The whole situation was making her a totally unhappy camper and she'd had Bert clutched under her arm for protection since Ziva started rattling off her scary camp fire stories about revenge killings and hiding in the desert for four months eating ants or something. She wasn't really listening because she was too busy freaking out.

"How did you know my size?" she held up the slacks and saw that they would fit her like they were made for her (even though they couldn't have cost more than thirty bucks).

Tony gave her a look and made an extravagant self-referential gesture using both hands.

"Right. Forgot who I was talking to." She fingered the blouse, "Is this flannel? Can't you get arrested for putting me in flannel against my will under the Geneva Convention?"

"Probably. But it's not going to be against your will, is it, because you know that the whole point of this exercise is to put you in clothes you would never ever wear." Tony guided her towards her office by the shoulders, adding the terrible brown flats he'd bought to her pile and thrusting her through the door. "I'll wait over there. Wear the flannel. Bra optional."

He'd returned to NCIS with three gently used suitcases full of clothes that neither of them would ordinarily have picked for themselves, a tent, sleeping bags, a sensible car with plenty of easily double-walled trunk space to be filled up with guns, a burn phone, two bullet proof vests, make-up, three pairs of sunglasses each, and hair dye. Oh yeah, and a huge wad of cash to be split up and hidden in various crevasses. And a camping kit with knife, matches, lighter, flash light, and cooking pot. She'd thought there might be such a thing as being too prepared, but then she remembered that she wasn't sitting this one out in her lab, she was the one riding the DiNozzo Express to Undercoverville. That made being too prepared sound impossible.

Because she was being targeted by a bunch of crazy scary mercenaries. She wasn't at all at terms enough with that yet to think about it as a real thing that was actually happening, so she was pretending they were going away on a wacky weekend trip.

A trip on which she wasn't allowed to bring anything that actually belonged to her. Her wallet, her cell phone, her clothes, her shoes, not even Bert. Nothing that could possibly connect her to her own identity was to go anywhere near the getaway car. Tony was bringing his driver's license and pretty much nothing else that was actually his. He'd said they were going to go by their middle names until they could get under their actual covers (which he'd spent an hour on the phone with someone in MTAC making up- why she couldn't help she did not know) because it was still his real name and checked out and everything, but it wouldn't be such an instantaneous red flag if someone was looking for the names of Abby's co-workers popping up. Or something. All this spy stuff was making her head explode. Give her some deoxyribonucleic acid for denaturation any day.

So anyway, that made Tony Daniel and her Audrey.

"Abigail Audrey?" he'd said, his tone carefully conveying absolutely no opinion.

"My parents had a mean streak."

"I'm not throwing any stones, Abs. My initials are ADD."

"Oh, I noticed."

"Thank-you for holding it in."

She washed all the make-up off her face, brushed out the pigtail bumps from her hair and braided it into one plait at the nape of her neck, dressed herself entirely in weirdo clothes, put on her ugly shoes, and shuffled out to show Tony. Which was also weird, because she was so used to wearing platforms in the lab and around her NCIS family that she felt like she'd shrunk standing next to him in those familiar surroundings minus three inches of height. It was actually kind of disorienting.

"Wow," Tony looked up from where he was intently studying some specimen jars (to keep himself from peeking through the window while she was changing, she was so on to him), "you look nothing like you."

"That's the whole idea, DiNozzo." Gibbs breezed in and gave her the once-over. "Good job, too."

They both seemed sort of hinkied out by the whole thing. Tony recovered first, "Well, unless there's anything new you need to tell me, we are out of here."

"You're wearing gear, taking a sedan and switching vehicles at a convenience store parking lot, check?"

Tony nodded once. "We leave the caps and coats with the sedan. Don't send anyone to get it for a few hours. I left the address with McGee."

"Check. You got everything?"

"Oh yeah, boss. I can stay gone for months."

Gibbs seemed to chew on something else he wanted to say, then he just nodded back. Turning to Abby, he chucked her under the chin and kissed her cheek. "You'll be home before you know it.

"Now get going."

Tony grabbed her hand and started leading the way.

She dragged behind him like a little kid, skidding easily over the tile in her new traction-free shoes, "Wait! Don't I get to say good-"

"They're all busy, Abs." Gibbs sounded even gruffer than usual, "Sooner we catch those bastards, sooner you're back here doing your doo-dahs."

She saw the fear in his wide blue eyes and it made her heart flutter even as Tony's arm settled comfortingly, protectively around her shoulders.

Gibbs was never afraid.


	2. Agent Abby

2. Agent Abby

.

She was actually kind of digging this. Not the being stalked and harassed and threatened (_again_, someone must have seriously messed up their juju because it could not be normal for one team to have this many nemeses wreaking their revenge in less than a year), but the being all decked out in official crime-fighting gear with an evidence collection kit between her feet and a gun holstered to her side, that part was cool. She didn't get to keep the gun and she wasn't allowed to draw it (not that it was loaded anyway), but she felt pretty bad-ass all the same. Equipped to be a one woman crime solving machine!

Abby had always wanted to see how the other side of the criminal investigative process lived: up close and personal gore, danger, chases, escapes, true love, miracles! But she actually had something of an aversion to the non-simulated danger creeping into her real live life. The danger she enjoyed recreationally wasn't the gun-toting criminal crazycakes kind. And she had good reasons for that.

Handling yourself on the night life scene and handling yourself in a shoot-out was not really the same. She'd had something of a rude awakening about her personal safety standards when Michael decided to send her a message about how safe she wasn't without him... or with him... or something. He wasn't the sanest guy she had ever dated. Of course, she'd never been in a shoot-out and one never knew until one tried, did one?

Tony was being unusually quiet for a Tony, his heroic jawline set in a tense line and his fingers a little tight on the steering wheel. Right now he looked like the NCIS action figure (now with extra ruggedly handsome!), but he seemed to shift back and forth between being super excited to go undercover again (his area of expertise, Abs, did you know that blah blah blah- yes, she did and she loved him to pieces but she had heard that story _so many times _and it wasn't even one of the truer ones) and being all super serious our-lives-are-in-peril and this is so very, very important secret agent man. But Tony was always kind of contrary, kind of spectacularly contrary, and she had always liked that about him. Well, not always, but she'd wised up quick. Even genii make mistakes.

"How did you get back to the Navy Yard from wherever you left the car?" Small talk was still a little beyond her at this point, what with Gibbs showing fear and hell freezing over and all, but she'd been wondering and she couldn't take the silence.

"Ran. Cab leaves a paper trail." Well, well; Captain Cautious.

Abby grinned at him, "You're such a super hero, Tony."

"I try."

., ;,:,.

They pulled into a 7-Eleven and disembarked, circling the building twice before they ditched their NCIS duds in the trunk of the sedan along with Abby's briefly owned service weapon. She was disappointed to see it go, but it was probably just as well since she wasn't used to strapping and had been walking awkwardly enough for Tony to cough over several unmanly giggles. Abby knew all about the science of weapons, she'd fired hundreds of them into her water tank, but she'd never learned to shoot into anything else. Too hostile.

There may have been an incident in her youth involving shotguns and small furred creatures, but she didn't want to talk about it.

Tony plonked a sun hat on her head on his way to the driver's side door of the staggeringly boring, not really new, not really old, totally forgettable family station wagon they were apparently riding in for the foreseeable future. It currently had Pennsylvania plates, but there was a smorgasbord of selection hidden in the trunk lining along with their arsenal.

"That's temp," he pointed to the hat, "We'll stop in a few hours and bleach your hair."

Abby grabbed her plait in horror, "Bleach it?" After all the Manic Panic it took getting it black in the first place?

"So we can go back to your natural colour. So the roots won't show when they come in... What is your natural colour, Abs?" he started the car and couldn't look at her as he concentrated on backing out, but she sensed his federal agent-detective-professional busybody extrasensory feelers extended in her direction to detect lies. "Usually I can just tell, but you are a woman of many mysteries."

She was chewing on the end of her hair now, thinking about the fact that it would probably have the consistency of Easter grass when they died it again. Not that she cared that much (it was just hair), but she didn't think having a platinum birds' nest on her head was the subtlest thing ever. "Tell, huh?"

"What?" he shot her a glance and noticed her curling inward on herself. "Come on, I was just kidding. Tell me. How embarrassing can it possibly be?"

Abby made a dissatisfied noise in her throat. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Abby."

"Oh. Yeah. 'Course you can."

"Kind of goes with the territory."

"Well..."

"Yes?" Tony's elongated, sibilant S provided her with a sense memory of a childhood pet snake winding around her arm.

"I'm a blonde."

He grinned at her, looking way too pleased and disturbingly eager, "Really?"

She pouted, "Not very Goth, is it?"

"Oh, I don't know. It depends. I've seen some alternate wave bands do the whole visual kei routine with the Gothic Lolita hair and the blonde ringlets and the... thing." he patted her arm supportively. "Makes it pretty easy on us, anyway. One step."

"What about you?" her eyes drifted towards the familiar spiky brown coiffure. He hadn't changed it for a long time. She couldn't say she missed the slicked back thing he was doing when they first met.

He shook his head, "They're not looking for me yet."

"Yet?" the fear clenched her throat and she felt like she'd eaten concrete for lunch.

His fingers closed around hers on top of the armrest, "If they're as good as Fornell says they are it won't take them long to put two and two together. We've got a little time before that happens, though. It'll keep."

Abby's troubled stare took turns focussing on her ugly shoes and the rims of black nail-polish she hadn't been able to clean from her cuticles, stark against the whiteness of her skin and in ragged contrast to Tony's typically perfect grooming.

"I'm going to look after you." his voice broke into her stupor, warm and resonant, deep enough to crawl into and hide forever. He was trying to make eye contact, his gaze darting to meet hers and then back to the road, and it was hard to talk with expression when you kept getting interrupted but his big, grey-green eyes were piercingly sincere.

"I'm scared, Tony. I don't know anything about being undercover or sneaking around or-"

"Hey," he stopped her gently, but very firmly. "I do."

She put on a brave face, knowing she was getting a little mood-swing-y. She figured she was entitled. "And you're really good, right?"

He smiled at her, lit up with charm, "Oh yeah. Why do you think you're with me and not Ziva?"

She blinked, "Now there's a scary thought."

.,.;,:,.,.

"You know, if you stopped squirming, this would be a hell of a lot easier." Tony angled the shower head just badly enough that water seeped into her towel and dribbled down her neck. She was pretty damn sure that was on purpose.

"Move your legs so I can support myself and I will, DiNozzo!"

They were in a Twister pose over the edge of their somewhat groddy motel bathtub; Abby in pants, bra, and towel, Tony with his sleeves rolled up and gloves on his hands. Nominally, they were trying to rinse the bleach out of Abby's hair, but somehow it had gotten complicated. She rolled over for him to do the other side and felt like she was stuck in a limbo game until her eyes caught something so much worse across the tiny room.

"Tony, what the hell is that?"

"What?" he let out an exasperated sigh as he followed the line of her outstretched finger to the offending object, a small bottle sitting innocently on the bathroom counter. "It's that foundation with the fake tanner stuff in it."

She scowled at him. "What's wrong with this picture?"

"It's for you, dollface." he smirked at her and tweaked her nose.

"That's exactly what I was afraid of."

., ;,:,.

"It looks fine."

"It feels so weird. I haven't been blonde since I was like fifteen."

"Actually, it looks kind of amazing. I'm thinking about revising my list of the ultimate bombshells."

"I am warming up to it."

., ;,:,.

Tony ordered wings and pizza and they had a picnic on the bed while he told her about femme fatales and undercover capers in movies. She liked old noir, but she had really been limited to a few classics and the anti-classics (because she couldn't deny her bile fascination and there were only so many monster movies) and Tony's knowledge was much more broad and extensive. This reminded her, maybe when they got to wherever they were going to wait this thing out, she and Tony could have movie nights. They'd been meaning to for years, but it never quite became the regular thing they intended. Gibbs always managed to pick those evenings to go on a four day crusade where nobody got to leave the office until he got his man. Well, Tony didn't. Abby sometimes did. When she asked really nicely and the evidence was all processed.

She couldn't help staring at the stranger who met her gaze when she caught her reflection in the old tv screen or the mirrored doors on the beat up secretary. She looked like a photographic negative of herself and her regular old haircut with the new colour was sort of freaking her out.

"We should cut it." she announced.

Tony swallowed his mouthful of pizza, "Are you serious?"

"Totally. It's not like I can wear it in pigtails for a while, anyway."

"You want me to do it?" he sounded very, very doubtful.

Abby gave him a teasingly condescending smile, "Unless you think I should."

., ;,:,.

"Okay."

"Okay," she echoed.

They were lying side by side on their smallish motel bed, she under the covers, Tony (being a gentleman for her) above them, and both of them with their hands folded over their bellies.

Her hair had turned out pretty good for something the two of them totally improvised by themselves in a motel room without any professional assistance. The black dye had surrendered more gracefully than she was expecting and her hair was not completely fried by the bleaching process. Tony had amazingly steady hands and very sharp scissors (from the first aid kit which looked like it could handle anything up to and including a kidney transplant), so her new chin-length bob was nicely even if not terribly stylish. She thought she looked a bit like a waifish heroine from a silent monster movie, all platinum blonde and milk-pale skin, and that was fine with her. If only she were allowed to wear black lipstick.

Her hair was tickling her neck in the back where she wasn't used to the shortness, so she tried to slide along her pillow until all the dangles pointed away from her. Tony glanced over, seemingly stirred from his own thoughts. She figured his were more James Bondish and less neurotic.

"You speak Spanish right?" he was twiddling his thumbs and his toe was tapping. The whole bed jiggled a little bit when you did that, but she wasn't bothered. She thought it was cute. The fact that both of them were too tall for the accommodations and their feet were hanging over the edge- his a lot further than hers- was also cute, but she had a feeling it would lose its charm over the course of the evening.

"Not amazingly well, but yeah. I read and write better than I talk."

He made a thinky noise. "Speak any other languages?"

"Pig latin?" she offered.

He turned his head to look at her, somewhere between amused and frustrated, "Not French?"

"Not really."

"I thought maybe... you being from New Orleans and all." He threw his arm across his eyes, "Just brainstorming, Abs. Anything I can think of to keep you away from the people who would hurt you. There shouldn't be anyone who would hurt you."

She was sobered by his tone, unable to help remembering the things she had been trying not to remember ever since Ziva started explaining the situation in which she now found herself. One of the crime scenes she'd worked on for the case had been the murder of an agent the mercenaries had used to keep tabs on a big New Orleans drug ring. He'd cooperated with the FBI, passing on whatever information he gave them as well as anything else about them he managed to notice. Somehow they found out, and they made an example of him.

Abby worked the case as an assistant to an IAI certified blood spatter pattern analyst (which reminded her, she still wasn't certified, and with all the time commitment they required, likely to remain so... defence lawyers should not be told this) and the once homey little kitchen was so covered in spatter it was like they'd been messy on purpose. Wipe stains, cast-offs, arterial spurts (those were always shudder-inducing) and a massive skeletonized where someone had soaked up a pool with a towel they then used to block up the toilet. The analysis determined over six points of origin, an unusually high volume of back spatter evident in every case. The assailants had literally beat the man to a bloody pulp before shooting him point blank in the throat with a shotgun.

When she testified, their eyes were on her like she was something floating in a specimen jar. Two normal-looking men, dark hair and eyes, average height, well-muscled but not huge, perfect teeth, one with light brown skin and one Celtic pale, covered in freckles. There was nothing about their only mildly scarred up faces to suggest they weren't ordinary people who played tackle football on weekends or something like that. There was nothing to tell you they were monsters. The pale one had smiled at her and she had seen that smile in her dreams for months.

"Tony, get under the covers and give me a hug." She made it an order.

He only hesitated a moment after he saw her tired, worried, lonely little face, somehow more vulnerable without her customary make-up and with her newly shorn blonde hair framing her cheeks in soft waves. She burrowed into his side as he lifted the blankets and settled beside her, throwing a leg over both of his and pressing her cheek into his sternum. His arm came around her shoulders and he was all warmth and firmness, strength and dependability.

"The boss will get them. We'll probably be heading home by the end of the week."

"I think I'm going to sleep under the boat for a month even so."

He laughed softly, "You're the only one he'd let get away with it."

"Advantage of being me."

"One of the many. Good night, Abs."

"Night."

She feel asleep listening to the sound of his steady heartbeat and the drone of crappy motel air conditioning.


	3. Worrying

_AN: An important characterisation/timeline note I should have mentioned: this story takes place after "Jeopardy" but before "Hiatus"._

3. Worrying

.

"Good evening, Jethro." Ducky greeted, standing but not looking up from the file in his hand as the automatic doors whisked open, knowing it wouldn't be anyone else. "I've been studying the autopsy reports for the known victims of our deadly assassins, but I'm afraid there isn't much that I can..."

He looked over at his friend, seeing the hard lines of his mouth, resulting from great tension in his levator anguli oris muscle, and the deep shadows of fatigue around his unusually bright blue eyes. Ducky put the papers down and clasped his hands together, taking a deep breath as he sent up a silent prayer for strength. There was only so much a man could be expected to take in a single year and Gibbs was a man who had taken considerably more than most. He coped well under all kinds of pressure, except the kind he was helpless to relieve.

Ducky came over and lay a firm hand on the centre of Gibbs' back, "But I'd venture a supposition that you need at least three fingers of strong drink far more than you need to hear my highly educated wild stabs in the dark. Come."

He allowed himself to be guided into the chair, but his posture was ram-rod straight, his hands curled with tension. "I should have taken her myself."

Ducky froze by the cupboard, his hand halfway to the Scotch bottle.

"We're getting nowhere and she's out there-"

"In Anthony's extraordinarily capable hands." He poured the drinks and brought the full tumblers over, pressing one into Gibbs' absent-minded grip, "He is far better suited to the task than you are yourself, Jethro, as you very well know. You made precisely the right decision putting her in his care."

"I did? Then why do I feel like I passed the buck, Ducky?"

The pathologist leaned against the nearest mortuary table, taking a small sip of his own drink for fortification before putting it down behind him and crossing his arms. The Scotch burned his throat, but its welcome warmth spread through his chest as it made its way down. He wished there were something more he could offer than that familiar sensation and advice which wouldn't be listened to, but Gibbs was slow to accept other forms of comfort, especially when he was so preoccupied with seizing blame. Ducky did not know why these men of action were so quick to take all burdens unto themselves. He had broad shoulders he was more than willing to lend.

"What?" Gibbs was irritated by the gentle stare down, quick to feel persecuted. His agents were probably already lashed down to the bone, upstairs licking their wounds in the brief respite; no leads or suspects to distract them, no Anthony to draw the heavy fire and diffuse the tension, no Abigail to soothe the wild beast. It could be a long, long case for all of them.

Ducky took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, "I've just to look at you to feel tired, my friend."

Gibbs' expression twisted, clearly he wanted to say something but was too annoyed to say anything fit to be heard.

"You cannot lock us out because Abby is in danger, she isn't yours alone to save."

"Ducky-"

"You're hardly the only one to care for her, Jethro, and it is hardly 'passing the buck', as you put it, to give the right task to the right man. Tony is the best undercover operative you have ever worked with, you told me so yourself when you brought him home from Baltimore. Ziva's experience prepared her for exactly this kind of mission, to find and neutralise mercenary and terrorist cells. Timothy can follow a trail other agents would not even be able to detect. You have the best people for the job, all most eager to be of use. Let them help you." He leaned forward with a beseeching look, "And allow me tell you that it will be all right."

Gibbs downed his drink and stood, giving Ducky a brief, one-armed hug as he passed. "You can tell me."

"Your permission is most comforting," Ducky watched him disappear into the elevator. "Now how do I make either of us believe it?"

.,.,;,:,;,.,.

McGee looked up at the sound of a dull plonk on the surface of his desk to see a steaming coffee cup standing tall beside his mound of case files and notes. He sighed gratefully and tilted his head to smile at Ziva in thanks.

She smiled back, a little tightly, but otherwise giving nothing away. You might not even realise there was anything to worry about looking at her relaxed posture and unhurried walk across the squad room.

"Did you find anything while I was out, McGee?" she asked over her shoulder.

He clicked through the all the potentially interesting things he'd left open on his desktop to read more carefully, but on closer inspection nothing seemed even remotely promising. "Nothing I can show to Gibbs. You?"

"My contacts suggested these men might be operating out of Nassau. There have been some whispers of the kind for which we are looking in that area, but there is not anything solid, not anything..."

"Helpful."

"Exactly, yes." She sank into her chair and flicked her mouse petulantly, "I hate this. Desk work, no leads, knowing Tony is out there somewhere with full permission to buy whatever idiot things he wants."

McGee put his chin in his hands, looking glumly at Gibbs' empty desk, "Idiotic. And I don't think he would do that, Ziva."

"No one can check on him, there will be no paper trail."

"Abby's with him. Everybody is serious about protecting Abby, even Tony."

She started playing one-handed catch with her eraser, "I know. I am trying to make you feel better. It seems without success."

He smiled weakly, "Thanks, Ziva."

"You did the same for me." she walked back over, restless, and started reading his computer screen.

McGee rolled aside to let her poke around, "And you said it wasn't necessary."

"Necessary and desired are not always the same thing, yes?"

"I guess not." he agreed.

It did make him feel a little better, at least that Ziva was worried enough to _try _to make him feel better. It meant that he wasn't alone, even if it also meant the situation had to be incredibly dire, because how often did Ziva worry? She was probably categorising all the ways in which she would torture the suspects without leaving any marks when they finally managed to catch them, because Ziva really hated desk work. She seemed to hate worrying almost as much. Both of those things she would probably construe as being the fault of the mercenaries, and woe unto them for that.

He, on the other hand, was working very much within his element on the computer forensics side of things. His element or not, though, it hadn't been fruitful. For hours now, he'd been trying desperately to find any trace of these guys showing up in any system, anywhere, but there just wasn't anything to find. It was like they'd never escaped from jail. The only reason the FBI knew about the reprisal killings was that it was the only connection between the two victims and they had found one partial palm print at the scene. Which Travis Rodriguez- whose print it was- had probably wanted them to find, because what did he care if they knew he committed one more murder as a fugitive if it meant he could scare the living daylights out of anyone else who had ever wronged him. Gareth Robinson, the other escapee, had left no trace evidence, but he had left the calling card of his old branch of the mercenary club.

That they then went on to stage the special scene just for Abby (who the FBI decided didn't need to see this little gift and for that McGee was thankful) only confirmed the obvious.

Fornell promised he had given them everything, absolutely everything, the FBI had on these guys and it was pretty much nothing at all. The club had no consistent MO even for single members, their base of operations was never found, the best interrogators had been unable to extract any useful information from the two who were captured, and no one had the faintest notion who the leadership was.

They were dealing with real pros, and pros with no apparent dogmatic weaknesses like terrorists had. No decadent or traditional weaknesses like the Mafia had. No passionate weaknesses like your run of the mill murderers had. Not even ritual weaknesses like serial killers had. They were ghosts and there was no way to touch them.

"They must have friends in high places," he said, thinking out loud. "There's no way they could avoid leaving any trail like this unless someone with insider power was helping them. Even the most sophisticated fake ID is recorded and eventually bottoms out- we know what the two of them look like, their real names, why haven't we found any of their former aliases?"

Ziva glanced at him, but she was still scanning some old CIA reports he'd left open, "It is possible they were able to live completely off-record with the aid of the club infrastructure. The FBI is convinced they have no political backers and never created identities for their operatives."

"How did they infiltrate secure buildings?"

"Impersonated vetted personnel or simply by-passed security altogether. It can be done." She sounded very sure and McGee didn't really want to press the issue. Ziva's stories always ruined his appetite for days. "And all you need to stay off the record, McGee-"

"-is a whole lot of cash." Gibbs threw something at his desk as he stormed past, "Someone met them when they escaped from prison, they had to arrange the meeting while they were still inside. You two, go find out how."

The two agents scattered, grabbing weapons and coats, chucking the remains of several take-out meals. They were headed for the elevator when Gibbs called after them again.

"And stay together! I do not need a kidnapping to round out my week."

.,.,;,:,;,.,.

"Here, put this on." Tony held out his green hoodie.

Abby accepted it wordlessly, only glancing up at him; they were on their way out to wherever they were headed and it was way too early in the morning to articulate unnecessarily. Especially without one's sprinkles. The sweater still smelled disappointingly like a clothing store, not like Tony, as she pulled it over her head. Waking up tucked into him tight as a little tick had reminded her how nice his scent was.

"It'll cover your hair," he was explaining without needing to be asked, "we don't want anyone to be able to connect the suspiciously Abby-like person who came in here last night with the blonde bombshell who's going to leave, right?" He grinned at her encouragingly.

"I would not have thought of that," she praised, feeling like it should have been obvious now that he'd pointed it out.

He tapped the side of his nose in standard movie-secret-agent signal style, "Always, always be devious when you can't get caught. Even more always, be inconspicuous no matter what. If you draw any kind of attention to yourself, people will remember you and when people remember you, they can tell the guys who are looking for you what they remember. You don't want that."

She chewed her lip a bit, a ball of nerves in her stomach, "I'm kind of used to standing out in a crowd."

"I know and I do love that about you, but until we are safe, I need you stay as low-profile as you can and to always follow my lead- deal?"

She nodded quickly. She sort of wanted to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head until all of this blew over, but Tony was trying so hard to help and keep her safe and let her pretend to have some autonomy even though she had no idea what she was doing. She owed it to him to put in a decent performance as somebody who wasn't her.

How hard could it be?


	4. Promises, Promises

4. Promises, Promises

.

"Oh my giddy aunt, what is this radio station and where the hell are we?"

Well, look who was awake. Tony glanced over at his grouchy co-pilot and had to smile. Her fresh cut hair was a halo of frizz around her head and a pout of epic proportions distorted her entire face all the way up to her eyebrows. It was adorable. Not to mention she was still curled up in his hooded sweatshirt, which was about forty-five sizes too big and made it look like she wasn't wearing pants. That was his favourite look on a woman: one of his shirts and no pants. It was the step above black tie evening gowns in silky fabrics with plunging backs, after which Cheerleader outfits pulled a distant third (wouldn't Kate have been disappointed in him).

She even had her shoes off. He felt like he was driving the family to Grandma's house.

"We are in Decatur, Illinois, Abs. You missed Indiana."

She sing-songed, "Indiana wants me, but I can't go back there."

"Good tune."

He turned off the radio before she could remember to start complaining about it again. He'd only put it on to listen to the traffic reports, it wasn't his fault if the posted station played a lot of James Taylor. Actually, he didn't really mind. He was open to almost all kinds of music. The same could not be said for Abby, as surprising as that was considering what she was open to. Her taste was wide, but esoteric.

"They did an episode of the original _Fugitive_ TV series here. Well, it was set here."

"I doubt they went on location much, Tony, it was the sixties. Is there somewhere we can eat?" Abby started finger-combing her hair and trying to straighten out from her pretzel-like sleeping pose.

"I'm sure there is, Miss One-Track Mind." he teased. This was not the first time on the trip the only words she had for him were about their next meal.

She had the grace to look embarrassed, "I get a little testy when I'm hungry."

"I've noticed." Personally, he ate constantly when he could because he was used to not being able to eat for long, ridiculous stretches of Gibbs-time and undercover it could be even worse. He'd needed to lie himself out of many a meal after a check in on assignment. Whatever it took, protect and serve, etc. etc. You got used to it. Though he had a feeling Abby wouldn't. If everything went according to plan, she wouldn't have to, either. They should only be moving for about a week and a half before they bedded down into their deep cover. He hoped.

In the meantime, Abby needed to be eased into the whole idea, because it just wasn't her area. In fact, hiding who you really were as much as possible could be described as the antithesis of Abbyness.

"That looks a bit fancy, let's go there." He pointed to a swanky, sit-down restaurant. Until now they'd been stopping at diners and dives and various other unsavoury places that specialised in over-salted, underdone, extra super greasy take away. Which he liked, but variety was the spice of life. The last time he took Abby to a swank restaurant, her conversation with the waiter had him wiping away actual tears of laughter. He seriously almost wished he could take her home to meet his father. She'd try her best to fit in for him, she liked being treated like a lady, and she certainly had good manners when she felt they were warranted, but she just didn't have any tolerance for bullshit. Some of the rituals of the rich and snobby definitely fell under that heading.

Abby glanced between him and the restaurant with a befuddled frown, "You want to go some place fancy?"

"It'll be good practise for your future undercover exploits. We'll put on some more appropriate clothes in the car and we'll be good to go, right Audrey?" He turned into the parking lot and scanned for a spot behind the building. No sense getting arrested for indecent exposure. Not while they were on the run.

"I uh, I- sure, Ton... Daniel. Ready when you are." She smiled bravely and saluted him.

Full points for enthusiasm, anyway. Things probably weren't going to go well, because he was having way too much fun with this whole Undercover Abby Thing and the universe just did not like him that much.

.,.,;,.:,.,;,.,.

"Daniel!" Abby hissed across the table, "the salad alone is forty-five dollars!"

Tony just smiled, "Order whatever you want, honeybuns, we're celebrating my big bonus, remember?" She might as well, he'd already ordered a wine he hadn't seen since he attended a cotillion with his father when he was twelve. Some cousin twice removed was being presented to society as a _débutante_. Talk about your bullshit, his father going to that. _Him _going to that. Anyway, he was pretty sure the wine was going to be more than forty-five dollars.

"Pretentious," Abby muttered, reading the elaborate descriptions of some basic food items on the menu. "I like really good food in little towers as much as the next girl, but that's just..."

"Classy," Tony covered as the waiter dropped off an intricately decorated salad plate with a carefully constructed spinach garden on some kind of cracker lattice.

"This is..." Abby took a bite mid rant and her eyes rolled back in her head. "Orgasmic. But still overpriced!"

He just laughed. "Ain't that always the way, Dee."

"Is that proper dinner table conversation? I think I'm offended." She mimed poking at him with her fork. She was using the wrong one, but they'd decided Audrey wasn't necessarily old money.

"I'd remind you that you started it, but I'm too much of a gentleman."

The waiter appeared again at his elbow with a tray of fresh water glasses, the delicate stemware glittering in the rays of afternoon sun streaming in the full-length windows. He seemed a little too fascinated by the cut of Abby's scoop neckline (not, for once, her spider web tattoo, which was covered by a silk scarf) and Tony saw the whole thing playing out before it even happened. The tray tilted that millimetre too far and fine crystal started listing, then coming down. His instincts were faster than his brain and he found himself stupidly reaching out to catch glassware that wasn't even his to pay for when it inevitably broke. The bowl shattered as it hit his outstretched fingers and sliced neatly through the flesh, deeply enough to cause a pretty, red gash.

He stared at his hand, feeling foolish. "Oops."

"T- Daniel! Are you okay?" Abby was trying to stand up and getting her skirt caught in the leg of her chair.

"Sir, I am so-"

"Don't worry about it." It did sting like a son of a bitch and it was dripping on the carpet, but he would probably live. He wrapped it in one of the embroidered table napkins and excused himself to the washroom, Abby staring after him with a deer in headlights expression on her face. It likely wouldn't do to leave her alone for too long, she was on edge enough without him causing a scene and bleeding everywhere. Real inconspicuous of him, great example he was setting.

Having a terrible, terrible thought, he gave his index finger an experimental twitch. Oop. Yep. Not a go. Houston, we have a problem.

"Tony?" Abby was pushing the door to the men's room open with her back while facing the other way, waving something over her shoulder. "I've got band-aids."

Small mercies. "Come on in, nurse." It was the comfy, fancy, single-occupant style of washroom and he locked the door after her. Properly hidden from prying eyes, he stripped off his jacket and leather shoulder holster, handing her his pistol butt-first with the safety on. "Hold this."

"What are you doing?" she watched as he moved on from washing the blood out of his shredded fingers to pulling apart the holster's straps and then rethreading them to the cradle.

"Now that I've managed to cripple myself- minor setback, just trying to keep it interesting for myself, you know how it is- I'm officially left-handed."

She leaned over his work, "Like Indigo Montoya left-handed? What's that got to do with...?"

"It's reversible," he held up the holster to show her before slipping it back on, "Can't waste time switching hands if there's reason enough to draw a gun in the first place. Kinda like Indigo but with more 'I stupidly hurt myself' and less 'I'm too amazing to fight at my full capacity or it gets boring'. Not that I don't sometimes have that problem, too."

"You can shoot left-handed?"

She must find that really interesting, he never knew Abby to pass on starting a _Princess Bride_ quoting match. "NCIS requirement. Actually, it's a federal agent requirement. You have to qualify with both hands, but your non-dominant is allowed to be slower. By like a fifth of a second."

She did indeed look rapt, "Never knew that."

"Now you do," he grinned and took his weapon back, stowing it. The situation wasn't ideal, his jackets were tailored to hide a gun on the left side, not the right, but it was safer than possibly screwing up his aim because he'd be wincing in pain when he pulled the trigger.

"So McGee can shoot right-handed?" Abby was still on this.

Tony started winding band-aids around his throbbing fingers, "Uh-huh."

She put her hands on her hips, "Man, I'm going to smack him when I get back. You should have heard him complaining when they had to requisition a new holster for him and it took a week to come in. He has serious left-hander's persecution complex."

He checked his hair in the mirror (it was perfect _aahooOOOoo_), wondering how exactly he was going to make it significantly different within the next week, "Poor McGoo, nothing's made for him. I feel his pain, really. What?"

She'd stopped him as he made to leave and was smiling hugely. "Just this," she lifted his injured right hand and kissed his bandaged fingers, "all better."

"Sure is." Only Abby. He put an affectionate arm around her as they walked back to their table.

"I apologise again, sir," the waiter grovelled as they sat down. "Your wine will be complementary."

"No worries." Tony would have suspected the guy as a nefarious element, but he knew the look of a man who had been genuinely caught out for staring inappropriately at a pretty girl and this was that look. If he weren't trying to lay low he might have used his silver tongue to finagle the whole incident into a free meal, but that was the kind of thing people remembered.

"Why do you feel his pain, righty?" Abby wondered aloud as they got back to their salads.

"Timmy's? I'm tall. Nothing is made for me, either. I live in a world without neck support."

She smiled at him with mock sympathy, "Poor baby, it must be so hard."

"Hey, the driving situation alone can be very annoying- and I hit my head a lot as a teenager."

"You hit your head a lot now."

He pointed at her seriously, "Now it's not my fault."

"So getting a smack on the back of the head is whose fault?"

"Gibbs'. He has poor impulse control."

That had her making a smothered noise very near a snort, "I will be sure to tell him that from you."

"Audrey. I'm hurt. I thought you'd warmed up to me."

She grinned, an evil spark in her eyes, "I love you, Danny boy, but a girl's gotta keep herself entertained and sometimes pay-per-view just doesn't cut it."

He put his tongue out at her and had her making a ridiculous face back at him just in time for the waiter to see it. _Well played, Anthony_, he congratulated himself.

They were ninety percent through their dessert (speaking of ridiculous, it shouldn't be legal for anything to have that many different kinds of sugar in it, not that he was complaining) when Abby froze with her after dinner grappa half way to her mouth. She was doing that big, huge laying-low no no of staring directly at something you didn't want to be seen staring at.

She leaned across the table, an edge of panic in her voice, "I know that guy. We dated."

He didn't look at all and he used a caress along her cheek and jawline to turn her gaze back to his, "Don't look at him. Don't talk to him. He won't recognise you if you don't talk to him, Audrey. You're tan and blonde. You might as well be wearing a mask." the low purr of his voice made him unintelligible to neighbours whilst simultaneously convincing them they knew what kind of things he was saying.

Abby's lovely jade green eyes were bright and wide, her feelings of helplessness all too easily read on her face. She did pretty well under pressure, but she'd never been someone not to let everyone know how she was feeling and right now she was broadcasting to the entire room. What to do about it, he didn't know. If he'd had anything in his pockets he could have used, he would have pretended to be proposing, but you could not propose empty handed- not even undercover. Besides, that was also the kind of thing people remembered.

In yet another example of Lady Luck's supreme love-hate relationship with him, the waiter chose that moment to urgently call him away from the table, apologising some more _sotto voce_. A quick mental trip through his options (and some curse words he didn't remember until that moment that he knew, probably learned from working with a. sailors and b. Gibbs if not c. other cops) delivered him the verdict that he was damned if he did and double damned if he didn't. A scene would ensue if he refused to go, Abby would be vulnerable before he'd had a chance to convince her she could totally get through this and didn't need to be afraid if he didn't.

He followed the waiter to a little cubicle around the corner from the dining room, where the cash register was. Some asshole at that piece of crap motel had paid for their room in counterfeit fucking bills and Tony had just so happened- luck of the rotten stinking draw- to get one of them back for change when he paid for his. And now there was "Sir, a problem, I'm certain you will be able to blah blah blah..." he so didn't need this conversation to go on for ten minutes with hedging and politeness, he just needed to give the guy another hundred and get the hell back to his job. Abby was out of reach and Gibbs was going to absolutely murder him to death if he didn't die of shame first.

By the time he'd managed to stem the flow of apologies, pay the restaurant off and start back to the table, Abby was headed out the door with a shortish, stout guy with sandy brown hair and absolutely terrifying taste in clothes.

Why him, God? What did he do in his life to deserve this?

He followed them and interrupted some conversation about the molecular structure of automobile paint or something equally fascinating interspersed with both of them exclaiming it had been too long. He came to a stop way inside Abby's personal space and glowered down at the guy from his foot advantage in height. Mean, jock boyfriend was a part he could play with little effort.

Abby jumped only a tiny bit before she slid an arm around him, "Oh, Leonard, this is my... uh... my..."

"Boyfriend," Leonard finished for her, "you can say it, Abby. We were over a long time ago. Hello."

"Hey," Tony knew he was being a complete dick, but this little encounter needed to be over two minutes ago and this guy needed to shake his head, think Abby had changed, and never, ever think of her again. At least, not until after Gibbs had put holes in every one of the mercenary psychos who were after her.

There was another short burst of babble which he was too busy not being angry or frustrated or terrified to listen to except to scan for keywords. He could do that, it came along with way too much dodging the boss and napping at the same time. And almost two full years undercover over the course of his career, but that was less dangerous.

He made sure to hold Abby in place until Leonard actually pulled out of the parking lot and drove away so that he would have no idea what kind of car they drove. Then he practically dragged her into their ride, trying to get his thoughts into some kind of order. He would have to have to have to do this. He did not want to do this, but he absolutely had to.

Even if neither of them would forgive him for it.

He ran his bandaged index finger around the steering wheel and wished that becoming left-handed had been the worst thing that had happened to him today. His voice came out icy calm and his inner self winced, knowing Abby would know that meant he was pissed as all hell, "What part of 'be inconspicuous' and 'don't talk to him' did you _not get_?"

He felt her ruffled feathers, her hurt at his tone, but he couldn't look at her. She was getting mad, too, and a mad Abby was an Abby lashing out, "Who broke a glass and had everyone staring at us?"

"No one will think twice about that, they'll remember the glass breaking, not who broke it. Even if they did, there was no connection between that couple and Abby Sciuto. This guy can place you in a specific place on a specific date _with me_."

"So what!" Now she was just too mad to think, because she was obviously smarter than him and she obviously knew what.

"_So_ now we _know_ they can find out who you're with, what direction you travelled and how you changed your appearance! When they find out who I am, they'll find out what I do and everything I've ever screwed up- they'll use it against us. The next time I give you an order, you _follow it_!"

"Friends don't give orders!"

Just when he thought he couldn't hate himself any more, he had to say things like this. "We're not friends right now, we're protector and protected, you know what that means? It means your safety in my hands: I take that very seriously."

"McGee didn't treat me like this!"

"McGee screwed up! This isn't _my _first time. I will keep you safe, Abby, if I have to die doing it, if I have to make you hate me. That is a fair trade in my book."

She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her, her skin splotchy red under the tanner and her eyes shining, "I could never hate you, Tony."

Now she was turning his own words back on him and he just might break, "Abs-"

"But I'm not an agent, I've never done this before and I'm not in your chain of command."

"No," he agreed, so grateful to her for her hushed, forgive-me tone, loving her so much for the easy understanding she was offering with so few conditions. Because she was right, she wasn't an agent and no one had prepared her for this, no one said no to Abby- you just couldn't- and it wasn't fair, but it was the way it was and they both knew it. Life isn't fair. "But you are in my custody."

She pressed her lips together, narrowing her eyes at him, "Protective custody."

"I'm still hearing the word custody in there."

"Drive the car, Mister Jailer."

He put it in gear and was about to hit the gas when he felt that all too familiar urge to push his luck.

"Never?"

"Never."


	5. Thinky Thoughts

5. Thinky Thoughts

.

She was still thinking about it. The Tony giving her orders thing.

Or, not so much just Tony giving her orders as Tony giving orders in general. She did tend to forget that her friends were in a paramilitary civilian organisation and there was this whole chain of command thing and Tony didn't just torture McGee because it was hilarious, or because he was older and more experienced, he totally actually legitimately outranked him. And rank wasn't the same as just being further up the food chain. Oh, no. There was baggage with rank. Not the bringing you down kind, just the extra weight kind.

This was why Abby was a forensic scientist who existed outside of all this instead of a superhero special agent (which she could have been if she had wanted to be) as well as a scientist. It had to be hard having a friend you usually thought of as an equal be able to boss you around and know all this stuff you didn't and tell you you weren't allowed to risk your life while he was out risking his. So she gathered, anyway.

She didn't see much of that side, though. Gibbs would have been their fearless leader and they all would have listened to him even if this were just some kind of social club, because Gibbs was just that kind of person. The kind of person you listened to and followed even if you were used to marching only to the beat of your own internal drummer and heeding no outside rhythm.

That was her, that second thing, and Tony, too. This she knew.

Tony was an alpha male in sheep's clothing. Or was she mixing her metaphors? Even if she was, it made sense in her head and no one else was in here listening (or were they? There had been those crop circles a while back and sometimes she wondered if her federal agent friends were psychic). He had no problem taking orders and no problem with authority, just with being lied to or kept in the dark or used like a pawn. She'd seen him blow up at Gibbs for some stuff like that when they were a two man team. That was so very, very scary she had wanted to leave her own lab to get away from them. But now he didn't tend to face up to Gibbs quite like that, because you didn't face up to the leader in front of the subordinates where it might undermine his authority. Not that that was much of a worry for Gibbs.

But he was all super leader-y when he wanted to be, that was where she was going with this. He didn't need direction the way the rest of them kind of did (on the job, her personal life was mercifully free of direction and she had always liked it like that), didn't need a cap off point imposed. Tony was the person who acted out when there was someone to knock him down, but not otherwise. He tested his boundaries only when he was sure they were there. She remembered what he was like before he really got to know Gibbs, before he got to know her, and he wasn't someone who would ever be dependant. She hadn't liked him then because he didn't let her in and he didn't need her help, he was hard and fake and distant. It took time to see past that, for him to let her see past that.

(Though, weirdly, it was also the truth in a way, that hardness. He had no soft and gooey centre.)

She took them for granted sometimes, her gun-toting family. She forgot what they were.

"Where are we going?" she asked, not really expecting him to tell her. As much as everyone (but not she) thought of Tony as someone who couldn't shut up, she'd never met anyone else who could keep a secret from her. Even Gibbs would eventually cave when she turned on the pressure.

"It's a surprise," he deflected, not sounding like he was deflecting.

"What's our cover?"

Tony grinned widely, obviously relishing whatever he had in store for her, "That's an even bigger surprise."

She played with her fingers for a minute, folding the material of the full skirt (way more fabric than she would usually wear) into pleats and then letting them go. She was just breaking the seal on the silence to ease herself into what she really wanted to say. "I'm sorry about Leonard."

"That's okay."

"It's just, he came over to our table after you left and he was making this huge deal about knowing he knew me from somewhere and running through all these people he used to know in high school and people who used to work in a coal mine- who works in a _coal mine_ in this century?- and how when he was studying geology he met this one girl- but that doesn't matter. He was being super loud. I was just panicking, you know, I don't go in for this cloak and dagger routine, I only go undercover as myself when Gibbs asks me and I'm not in any danger, you know. So I told him who I was and tried to get him into the parking lot so people wouldn't hear what we were saying or anything and I know that was bad, getting further away from you, and I..."

"Abby," Tony stopped her tirade, "It's okay. Really it is. I'm sorry I got mad at you, but if anything like that happens again, do not let the person know who you are. It would have been better to have made a scene and stayed anonymous, because if they can't connect you to some blonde wingnut in a restaurant, they don't care about the blonde wingnut. You follow me?"

She did, and nodded. "I was upset." Too upset to even explain what had happened, instead bringing up McGee like it was some kind of competition who could protect her more to her liking, which was not an attitude that boys needed to be encouraged towards. Even these boys.

"It's okay," he repeated. "You're a quick study. We'll probably be all _True Lies_ before this is over."

"I can tango."

He looked over at her, that look that was half speculative and half hungry he'd used to get a lot when she flirted with him. As if he always knew, but couldn't quite believe, that she was seriously propositioning him. "Are you sure? There will be a test later."

"You tango, Tony?" she could feel her face lighting up with mischief.

He cleared his throat and switched driving hands, "My dance mistress said I was a natural."

"I am going to need to examine all these coming-from-old-money mad skills you've got."

"I'll hold you to that, Abs."

"Consider it a date."

That would make it their first in way too long, wouldn't it? She tried to remember the last time they'd gone to dinner together, just the two of them, and sat down for a real meal. Before they'd headed off on the lam, that is, because obviously they'd just had dinner together an hour ago. But before, it had been some while. He didn't bribe her for evidence the way he used to, and he was disappointingly gentlemanly about the hints she'd dropped in the vein of having found accessories to match her chastity belt.

It wasn't like she could count on anyone else's ears to prick up at that. McGee wasn't into it and would only crinkle up his nose and ask if she were serious. (McGee definitely had a soft gooey centre, he had a soft gooey outside. A soft gooey everything. Which was both adorable and very annoying.)

Now that she was thinking about the men in her life, she realised she hadn't picked up a new boy toy in a really long time. The last person she'd flirted with? Ducky. The last person to take her out for dinner? Gibbs. The last person to tell her she was beautiful? Tony. Last man to see her underwear? McGee. While on duty. Protecting her from Michael. What had become of her social life?

Even more disturbing, why had she not noticed until now how bored and lonely she must be?

Wasn't she?

No, she wasn't. Now, this was interesting. This _was _interesting.

"Tony, putting aside all the life and death and the anxiety and the scariness- are you having fun running away with me?"

One corner of his mouth was twitching upwards, "Aside from that?"

"Yeah."

"Well yeah, death and impending doom aside. I got to fulfil a very long-term fantasy of mine by seeing you go blonde, I know where another one of your tattoos is and I will taunt McGiggles with it until the sun turns black, and I get you all to myself for who even knows how long." He flashed her his full-on, thousand watt smile, the one that made him look like a film star, "If we weren't running for our lives, I'd say we were having a great vacation."

She grinned back at him, "I'm having fun, too."

And how long might it last? With Gibbs on the very serious prowl, probably not that long. She wasn't exactly aching to get back to her normal life yet (normal being a relative term), but all the same it was very stressful looking for crack assassins around every corner. That was from her perspective, too. She was sure it was worse from Tony's point of view, because he had a much better idea of what they were up against and what the whole thing would entail. Which there had not been time to explain to her and which he was now keeping from her for fun. Not that she resented that, she liked surprises as long as she knew a surprise was coming. Was that contradictory? Nah.

Countryside was flying by the window, trees and farms and sometimes houses, and not much else. She rested her head in her hand and thought about the people who lived in those houses and what their lives might be like. Sometimes driving through sparsely inhabited country could be so depressing, a heaviness coming over her to see human life so starkly, so perfectly illustrated in those edge places. Solitary houses on yards carved out of bush or grassland, washing on a line, junker in the driveway. What did those people do with the hours in their days and was any of it worthwhile? Other times it could be uplifting, sailing through and seeing something familiar no matter how far from home you went. Even volunteering to build homes in the most remote parts of Africa, she'd seen things she recognised in people, in places.

She tried to look for the good in everyone. It could be a blow not to find it, but it didn't happen often.

Then again, sometimes she found herself being reverse shallow, which was stupid of her. Speaking of.

"What's your disguise gonna be?" she poked Tony in the arm, not because he wasn't listening, but because she wanted to touch him. His flesh didn't yield under her finger's attack, the muscle flexed against her. He'd seen her coming. She thought 'hard as a rock' and almost giggled under her breath.

"I'll grow my hair out and maybe experiment with facial fungus, but I don't know if we're going to be gone long enough for that to make any difference. The other thing- open the glove box." He pointed to something inside as she did so and she handed him a grey case. One-handed, he flipped it open and put on the sleek, delicate silver-framed glasses that were inside. "There's these, too."

They really made him look different. He looked like somebody who could quote the encyclopaedia and knew the names of all of his great great grandparents. You'd think with the clothes he wore he'd always look rich, but he never had to her until this very moment. He looked like pure sophistication, like he was on summer break from Oxford and on the way to the yacht club. Like he'd be quoting Edmund Burke to her at a moment's notice. Frankly, like he could out-hack Timmy.

"Where'd you get those on such short notice?" she had to ask.

Tony seemed the tiniest, vaguest bit embarrassed, "They're part of my smart look."

She felt a black evilness rising up in her dark little soul, "To impress girls?"

"Some women find culture very stimulating."

Abby cackled. "Mr Twenty-ten vision needs glasses to impress girls? Are those real? I hope not."

"Just glass."

She didn't tell him they worked. He didn't need to know that.


	6. Flawless Execution

6. Flawless Execution

.

They were into their third hour of the alphabet game and Abby was thrilling in the discovery of a new experience, that of enjoying her own boredom, when it all went to hell. She had to say she'd always suspected hell was a place in Iowa.

The nondescript-mobile was rolling on through a little highway town when Tony suddenly let the car drift to a stop, and got all tense and serious-face. When she looked where he was looking, she saw why. Up ahead of them a small antiques and jewellery store was being robbed at gunpoint. A few people were frozen in the street outside, a young couple, a man and small child, an elderly woman; in the store, a few more people were being held hostage. She knew with sudden, time-slowing-down clarity that this was a small county, the police may not have been alerted and even if they were, help could be a long time coming. She also knew who she was with and his (very poorly kept) secret capacity for being a good old-fashioned hero, to the point it was a matter of some statistical improbability his idealism had never crossed the line into martyrdom.

"We can't just drive by," she said, so he wouldn't have to agonise about whether his responsibility to keep her out of sight outweighed the need to render aid to the distressed. So he wouldn't have to try to think of something to say that wouldn't make him hate himself for marginalising one duty or the other.

Tony's jaw was so tense it was a wonder his teeth didn't crack, and his eyes never wavered from the gunman, "I can't risk your life."

There were two shots and several screams. Tony twitched and she jumped. No one had been hit that they could see, but it was obvious things were escalating. Her stomach was knotting and she felt like her throat was closing up, excitement and terror twisting through her body, warring for dominance and first one, then the other taking centre stage. She felt like she could count the zeptoseconds going by (she once considered writing a paper on this sensory phenomenon occurring in police officers encountering mortal combat, she never thought she'd have first hand experience).

"You aren't," she said urgently, "You're saving theirs."

He slammed the car into park and flew out the door, leaning into her window a moment as he rounded the hood, "Stay in this car. If anything, _anything_ gets hinky or somebody comes near you, you drive away and call Gibbs on the burn phone."

He was gone before she could tell him to stay safe, for the love of freaking Pete. _Stay safe._

_.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,._

Tony doubled back down the road and found an alley leading to the private parking lots and various sketchy crannies behind the main drag where the shadier dealings of the townspeople doubtlessly went down. He found himself up and over the various kinds of fencing and balance beam walking along the edges of a line of dumpsters before he could finish wondering how he'd manage to get past the first rusty, nine foot chain link. The adrenaline was kicking in and his head was filling up with half-formed ideas on how to flush out the gunman and secure the hostages. He just had to hope to Christ the innocent bystanders would clear the street and that he could keep from thinking about how Abby was out of his reach (not only his reach, his sight) for the second time in two days. He was going to lock down on her tighter than one of her PVC clubbing corsets after he dealt with this little B-plot.

She wasn't going on a damn bathroom break by herself. And he wasn't even into that.

The store had a back door and an apartment above it, just as he'd figured it would. Already things were looking up. These old-fashioned main street buildings could at least be depended upon to remain basically the same all over most of North America. He debated briefly over trying the back door, but made a snap decision and climbed an outside pipe hand over hand until he could pull himself up onto a second floor ledge. _Damn, Anthony_ he thought, breathing a little heavy as he slithered in an open window, _lay the hell off the pizza._

The upstairs room was completely open: kitchenette, living area, bed, tiny door in the corner probably leading to a toilet. Everything looked original to the house, old fixtures, fraying cloth wires heading to ancient lamps, beautiful bare oak walls. He actually liked old things when they were a little run-down. Antiques that looked new and well-kept just reminded him of his childhood bedroom and he really didn't look back on that stuff fondly. Nightmares. Trouble with run-down old houses was, they made it extraordinarily difficult to walk around without being heard. Not being as leet as Gibbs, he was forced to take his shoes off, thanking his stars that at least they weren't_ his own _shoes, because if they had been, they definitely would have been genuine Italian leather. That was just always the way.

He listened at the big brass vents in the walls and was pretty well-convinced everyone in the house was in the front room he'd observed through the windows. He turned his attention to them and caught enough conversation to surmise the burglar was no professional, he was panicky and out of control of the situation. Possibly a local desperate for fast cash, possibly also jumping from the cliffs of Sanity Island into the Mad Sea. Tony had seen this kind of thing before, and this was an offender who could easily lose it and kill someone with little provocation. Just what he needed. Sometimes he almost missed the mob. At least they were organised.

Creeping to the top of the stairs, his first cautious reconnaissance glance told him the stairway headed right into the middle of the store. The lower level had been refurbished with full picture windows and security cases for the jewellery. No actual security system that he could detect, but there was a panic button under the counter that he sure hoped the owner had had time to push.

Flat against the floor he drew a deep breath, "Police! Drop the weapon and put your hands up! You are surrounded!"

The guy whirled around, his small revolver thrust out in front of him. He didn't look like he was at all sure how to aim it and seemed uncomfortable with its weight. Fantastic. The guy was a complete liability even if he didn't go off the deep end, because he obviously had no clue how to handle a gun and still had one in his hand. Loaded and already discharged twice. Which didn't seem to have injured anyone, so Tony's day was not yet completely shot all to hell.

Poor choice of words there, brain.

Tony led with his sig as he leapt down the stairs. He had to leave cover or this clown was going to put someone's eye out. "Drop it," he repeated, zoned in on his target's heart and ready to double tap.

It may actually have been a miscalculation, because the guy didn't freeze up like Tony figured he probably would. He took the second option Tony'd been hoping against his track record of luck that the guy wouldn't have the balls for. He held up the revolver and backed out of the store, the wildness in his eyes that of a person who knows he's painted into the corner and is preparing to lash out. _Shit shit shit._

_.,.,.,.,.,.,.,._

Abby watched from the driver's side, far enough away that she was unlikely to be drawn into the scene, but close enough to see everything that was going on in the street and most of what was going on in the store. She had her hand on the keys that Tony had left in the ignition, waiting for the worst and the moment she would need to speed away and leave him. She didn't think she could do it. Knew she probably wouldn't do it, but wanted to pretend she would. For the sake of his peace of mind, vibes-wise.

When Tony dropped into the fray from the ceiling like a _deus ex machina_ of justice, her heart revved up to triple time. When the bad guy came flying out through the doors and people scattered, she felt like her body may actually blow apart from internal pressure. When the little boy, no more than five, was separated from his father and fell as he came running towards her car, she knew she was going to get out and she knew this was involving herself far more than she should be involved. But she couldn't just sit there any more than Tony could drive by while all of this went on. Because it wasn't right.

She threw herself across the seats and shoved the door open, so focussed on the child as he writhed in pain that she failed to notice he was being pursued. Mr Psycho Robber shot at someone running away and then realised he needed a hostage alive and who better to bargain with than a child. She had scooped the kid up and spun in place to dive back into the car when a pair of arms started to encircle her, leaving her just enough leeway to push the boy to safety and kick the door shut before the grip fully closed.

"Don't move," his voice was high and his breathing laboured. He wasn't the type, she decided. He wasn't cold about it, he probably hadn't done this before. He'd probably never killed anyone.

She pushed back against him, testing for the weakest part of his grip, "I can't stop moving, some movement is involuntary, you know. Like your heartbeat, breathing, digestion- you can't be asking me to stop digesting?"

He was so sweaty as he changed his hold and grabbed her wrists with one hand that she felt like his fingers would slide right off, "Shut up! No bullshit!"

"Let her go." And there was Tony staring down the barrel of his semi-automatic pistol and pissed like a marine without his coffee. She wouldn't have recognised his voice if he weren't standing right in front of her.

The guy pressed his revolver into her neck and she felt less flippant about offering to stop digesting. His breathing sped up even more, "You're not a cop! Cops have uniforms and badges and back-up! There's no back up!"

Tony stopped creeping closer, his left eye squinted slightly as he trained his aim on the guy's head, "All right, then. I'm alone. You're alone. We can both walk away from this our separate ways and get on with our lives. When you let her go and drop the weapon."

Abby was trying to think of some way she might help and trying to reassure herself that she probably shouldn't help, because anything she might do to try to help would probably be wrong and merciful Lord there was a gun in her neck. The robber guy was a little taller than her, strong enough to control her pretty easily, portly, blue sweater, felt home made. She could probably definitely match the fibres he was leaving on her shirt. If this were a case and she weren't the victim. But he didn't seem like someone who wanted to hurt her, no no no, he seemed like someone almost as scared as she was and he wouldn't want to make this worse. She had to believe that.

She wasn't going to die.

There was movement and she couldn't see anything the way he was bending her, but the gun barrel was shifting and she was staring at Tony's left ear and she was staring so hard it precluded everything else in her field of vision, but the tactile sensations she was experiencing were legion. She felt like she'd just become Daredevil, she felt like the world was tilting and she saw the revolver out in front of her suddenly and that was wrong.

When the deafening explosion of an unmuzzled, ear-protection-free, genuine crisis situation gunshot shattered her entire brain for a few seconds, her first conclusion was that she had been shot and sure enough she seemed to be falling. Not feeling the impact, she felt as if she were weightless, as if she had no control over her own limbs, for a moment it was like a limbo of nothingness except for a certain weird smell.

Abby turned over and realised that she was lying on top of Mr Gunman and Mr Gunman was now a textbook demonstration of what arterial spray looked like in action. His throat was torn out by the bullet (which she now understood had hit him and not her) and he was spasming out his death as blood gurgled like some macabre fountain through the ragged hole that his hands desperately clawed, trying to hold his life inside. His eyes were darting around in panic- can't breathe can't breath _can't breathe- _and as the colour drained from his skin, he looked at her as if she could explain it to him. As if she could help.

He was still, twitched, and was still again.

She looked up and was finally cognisant of Tony standing over them, his sock bloody where he'd kicked the revolver out of reach (why he was in his stocking feet, she was not even remotely up to contemplating). It seemed to her the barrel of the sig was still smoking. Bile rose in her throat and her eyes stung, too dry to blink.

"You killed him."

"Yeah."

"You _killed _him."

"It was on purpose."

He grabbed her arm to pull her up and she looked at him like she'd never seen him before, but he didn't seem to notice. She couldn't find her footing, her knees were rubbery, and, in silence, he threw her over his shoulder in a fireman carry and headed towards the car.

Abby felt her ability to handle consciousness fading as he laid her in the back seat and picked up the kid to take him back to his father. Black spots were encroaching in her vision as the car started moving very, very fast and she heard sirens in the distance.


	7. Ghost

_I was reading the police textbook "Death Work" when I wrote this. Probably shows. _

.

7. Ghost

.

"No bullet, no casing, no weapon, no fingerprints, tire tracks totally destroyed by the locals and emergency vehicles, witnesses were all running the other way when it happened, only guy who got the description right is the kid's father. DiNozzo handed him his son and told him to tell the LEOs to call NCIS."

Ziva and McGee looked at Gibbs, then at each other, then at Gibbs again.

"So Tony committed the perfect crime?" Ziva said, only half kidding.

McGee shook his head, "Would have been a lot better if no one had seen him. Also, they have his shoes. Could be very significant."

"Is this funny?" Gibbs sounded dangerous.

"No, boss."

"Nobody saw Abby, Tony will probably dump the car after he doubles back." Gibbs sank into his chair, brooding. "Whole thing only costs them a day or so as long as their getaway from Washington was clean in the first place."

McGee glanced between his co-workers, nervous that he was missing something again, "How do you know that's what he'll do, boss?"

The glare he received could have curdled milk and he ducked his head back behind his monitor. Sometimes it was better to just accept that an answer existed, even if you didn't know what it was. According to Tony, the most important thing to come to terms with on this job was that Gibbs would always know more than you did about everything and probably wasn't going to share.

"What did you tell the police?" Ziva seemed pretty relaxed, but her mood could swing so violently sometimes it was better to give her a wide berth.

"To close the case. Justified shooting by an undercover officer."

"Was he not out of his jurisdiction?" she pressed.

Gibbs rolled his eyes, "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of intelligence expert, Officer David? He was there, no one else was, that made it his jurisdiction. We're federal agents, not MPs."

She opened her mouth again and McGee made desperate neck-cutting motions. You do not poke a wounded bear with sharpened sticks, and he could not figure out why everyone but him had such a hard time understanding that.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

She wasn't able to quietly pass out because Tony was driving at speeds in excess of five million miles per hour and she was being tossed around in the back seat like a ping pong ball. He got slight lift from the left side tires as he pulled a massive turn and starting going back the way they had come on a parallel street. He flew around another corner into a residential neighbourhood, slowed down to nothing and circled the blocks until he found a building with no windows to park behind. He disappeared for a minute and she remembered the stack of various license plates in the back. When he got back in he had changed his jacket, he was wearing a hat and the glasses, and they were off again.

"They teach evasive driving at FLETC?" she asked exanimately, trying to keep hold of her lunch.

He didn't react to her grey complexion or her robotic tone, his concentration total, "Yep."

She rolled over and planted her face into the seat, wondering why she couldn't cry.

She was used to corpses (even bits of corpses or corpses with their chest cavity flayed open), she was used to gory crime scene photographs, she was even used to seeing accident victims in the flesh (what cops called 'road pizza' because cops were all sick in the head as a rule of the subculture). None of it bothered her, she'd voluntarily watched a human dissection as a freshmen because she was eager to learn and she was eager to experience her own reaction. Her fascination with death and the macabre was news to no one. Her scientific curiosity extended as far as her job and lifestyle allowed it, which was pretty damn far considering she was a Goth forensic scientist with very interesting friends.

This was different.

Forget partial professional numbing and scientific detachment- it was pretty hard to dehumanise the guy into a piece of evidence when she'd been having a conversation with him a few seconds before that's what he became. Pretty hard when he locked eyes with her and she could see the failure to understand what was happening in them, could see the struggle, the fear, the _please don't let me die_.

No dead person had ever been so real to her, not even her friends, her family. Maybe because she hadn't seen them die. Maybe because she believed their souls were somewhere else by the time she saw their remains. Watching that man's blood pool around him as he fought to stay conscious, she had felt her own body cooling, her own heart slowing down, felt darkness descending on her world. She was not immortal.

It's a thing you think you know, that you're not going to live forever. But you don't really know it. You don't really believe it. Not until the truth of it assaults your senses and the knowledge hits you like four thousand tonnes of bricks.

She was a survivor now, she supposed, in a truer sense than she had been before. Sure, there had been previous danger, previous mortal combat raged over her head, previous dudes who thought that she could be used as a hostage or a victim or a torture device. But this was different again, because never before had someone died so that she might live. Never before had she seen someone killed in front of her. Never before had she seen someone she thought she knew as well as anyone in his life had ever known him- better- do something that was so difficult to reconcile with what she knew.

It wasn't like she was unaware of what their work could entail. She'd just been thinking about this the other day when she was reminded of how scary and pragmatic and business-like Serious Tony could be. She had been known to forget about that side of him because she didn't get to see it (even the other special agents didn't get to see it very often) and it was always so surprising when she did. Even when it wasn't full out, even just his calm where any normal person would be justifiably freaking could be jarring. Ari trying to snipe her came to mind. Not that she remembered that with her usual clarity.

Which was another reminder. She knew they killed people, it was impossible to believe they had not because she had to process the tech when they did. Gibbs was a sniper, for crying out loud. It was his job to kill people.

But it wasn't the same to know these things and to _know_ these things, was what she was getting at. And all her brain could give her was that gunshot in slow motion and loud like a crack of thunder, the blood spraying at least twice as fast as she knew it should be- her mind was playing tricks on her. His death was in her nose, she was sure she could actually smell the blood, though she could smell nothing else. And she remembered staring down the barrel of Tony's pistol and trying not to be there in the moment, of running through how she would collect evidence from her captor, wishing she could just have a task to order her thoughts towards.

Something about agency and enactment, she wasn't super interested in psychology. It was too soft a science.

Her stomach rolled again and she wished she'd never gotten so close to the action. She wished she didn't have to know what they faced, that she could still romanticise and glamorise, and never think of the bad guys as scared, helpless human beings with mothers and problems and reasons.

She wished she could unrealise that she'd forced Tony to take a life and she still blamed him for it.

"How many people have you killed?" She kept her back turned, her head pillowed on her arm as she stared at the checked grey bench seat which filled her vision.

"Nine, including him."

Abby was silent a long moment, swallowing against bile, "Is that a lot?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of here having the meaning of yes."

"Yes."

"How'd that happen?" the tears were coming now and her voice wavered.

"I'm a really good shot."

"Tony, I need you to give me something here. I need something from you."

She felt the car stop and heard him release his seat belt and open the door. Then he was leaning over her, pushing her up by the shoulders. She avoided his eyes until he held her face between his hands and ducked to find her eye line, "It's never easy. It always stays with you. It takes a piece of you and you have to watch yourself losing too many and getting too hard- but I don't regret a single life I've taken. I've never killed anyone who wouldn't have killed me or someone else if I had hesitated a second too long. I'm right with my conscience, I did my job, and that's enough for me."

His eyes, so green with the sun hitting them, seemed to swim as she tried to read into them. Tried to see it from his shoes. "Why so many?"

"I did three tours undercover for the Philly PD: narcotics. The last one didn't exactly go off like in the script. A link in my cover background broke when a dealer realised one of the guys who vouched for me had been busted a few weeks before, there was nothing I could say to make up for it. He'd made up his mind I was playing for the other team."

Memories of various twenty question games with him when he was still fairly new and shiny jiggled free in her brain. "Your 'extenuating circumstances'?"

He nodded, "My partner ended up losing an arm, a good cop got killed, a bunch of pushers died in the fire fight along with some college kids they just recruited- hadn't done anything yet- and they gave me a medal. For bravery. I couldn't stay there any more."

"And that was how many?"

He looked edgy, but he answered, "Three."

"What about the rest?"

"I caught a lot of guys red-handed who didn't want to go to jail, I was under in the mob after I made Detective, I got shit tours because the veterans hated me, I can talk so they sent me to talk to the psychos until they could get a negotiator in, I'm reckless, I seem to attract danger, you want to hear about my Baltimore captain and how he figured I wanted to be a martyr?"

She mirrored the way his hands had been on her face with hers on his, "Do you?" _Sometimes we wonder about you, hun. Sometimes we lie awake._

"I don't have a death wish," he said it fiercely, defensively, and she knew she was not the first person to ask.

"Do you have a life wish?"

He physically pulled away from her and she saw him so clearly it made her heart ache. Abby held out her arms to him, waiting patiently for him to notice the invitation. When he did, he just looked at her for a long moment- measuring her intent-, then he hugged her tight as a vice. She kissed him on the jaw near his ear- the only spot she could easily reach- and felt a little better.

"Tony, I'm going to see him for a long time, aren't I?"

"Probably always. More clearly than you ever would have thought."

"How do you deal with it?"

"Know it wasn't your fault, stay focussed, and keep on."

She hugged him even tighter for a moment, "I'm sorry."

"Believe me, I understand." he sighed and his breath tickled her neck.

"Thank you for saving my life."

"Any time, Abs."

,.,.,.,.,.,.,

They were in an almost empty bar across from the shop which was painting the former beige-mobile navy blue. Tony said he was originally going to trade it in for another used vehicle, but decided it was a bad idea. The one they had had been carefully erased from history and a new one had been written to match their cover story (a final appropriate license plate was set aside for this purpose), also it was modified to easily hide their spy stuff, which they would have had to find a way to move and hide in the new car and blah di blah: it just wasn't worth it. It was doubtful the shooting could be tied to the car in the first place. Even if it could have been, Gibbs would be on it.

She watched his long legs swing over the edge of the high bar stool and thought more about taking a life and dead bodies and how it was all so different than she thought it was.

"What's it like?"

He knew what she was asking by her tone, "You know, questions like that are considered a real _faux pas_ on the force."

"Good thing I'm not a cop, isn't it?"

"I can't even tell you." He started to smile, but it faded as he got thinking about something, "Abby, I can't tell you... that, either. It's... There's really no way to describe it or come to terms with it. You're fine with it because you know it was the right thing, morally, professionally, grammatically and all. You're sad because a life is a life, but it's not personal. You can't make this stuff personal. When you do, you need your partner to pull you back."

She was digesting and that stopped her up. "Did Kate ever do that?"

There was a subtle flash of pain behind his eyes and she felt as guilty as if she'd hit him.

"Tony, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... what did I do?"

He rubbed his eyes and looked like he'd rather be talking about anything else, "I just wasn't expecting you to mention her. It comes back to you sometimes in the weirdest ways. Shrink says he's seen guys lose it decades after. I plan to be building a boat by then, so I should be fine."

She put a hand on his knee, knowing she'd hit a trigger in spite of the gloss he was putting on it and not sure how to comfort him, "I miss her too."

"She was your best friend," he said, giving that the full respect it deserved, then shaking his head, "but she was my partner. You know?"

"Kind of." She had a better idea than most lay people, which was just enough to know that she'd never ever know.

"Yeah," he held her hand as he stood up and he blinked the shadows out of his eyes until you'd never know they were there, "Let's go check on old faithful's makeover. We need to get back on the road."


	8. The Marrying Kind

8. The Marrying Kind

.

"What if you'd missed that shot?"

He sighed through his teeth, "I wouldn't."

"What if you did?"

"Abby, I am an excellent marksman. Really. With both hands. I wouldn't hit you. If there was the slightest chance I would have hit you, I wouldn't have taken the shot. Okay?"

"What about that hostage marine in Columbia a couple years ago?"

"He's fine. I think he and the wife are having another kid."

"_Someone_ shot his ear off. Kate said you have no cautious bones in your body."

"She was too cautious."

"There is a happy medium, you know."

"I didn't hit you!"

She giggled and he glared at her.

"Is torturing me really the only way you can think of to spend your time?"

Abby started drawing circles on the roof of the cab, playing coy, "There's no lab in the car, Tony. I play with science and I play with boys, those are my occupations."

"Are you allowed to play with boys in small town Minnesota?" he wondered, "Seems like the kind of thing that's frowned upon by good clean country folk."

She would have started poking him physically as well as verbally long ago but for the fact that he was driving and she didn't want to die. "I am so bored I would welcome being arrested. It totally would not be the first time."

"You know, Abs, that's what makes you so great. You are the sweetest girl I've ever known to get arrested because she was bored more than once."

"It was only a misdemeanour." She batted her eyes innocently.

"Uh huh. Luckily for our low profile- which is on life support as of right now, by the way- I've got something else for you to do." He turned into a TGI Friday's and parked. "Hopkins, Minnesota seems to me an excellent place to call home and see how things are going back on the farm."

Abby was so excited to be checking in, she flirted with their waiter without really meaning to. Tallish and blond with a name tag reading 'Mike' (which she read in various different ways every time he came to the table), he seemed amused and vaguely puzzled by her bubbly non-sequiturs. Tony watched, mystified, during the first few exchanges and then shushed her by calling her every embarrassing pet name in his considerable arsenal of truly ridiculous embarrassing pet names. Strangely enough, they seemed to fit right in with the handful of other patrons and Mike the waiter turned out to be hilarious. She almost wished they were hiding out here.

Lunch paid for, they made their way to the payphones at the back of the restaurant. Abby didn't want to think about how many numbers Tony had apparently had to memorise in order to phone directly into MTAC and a secure line, but it was way more than was at all reasonable. It might have been worth it, because it took less than a minute to go from an answer to Gibbs, whose presence on the other end was made obvious by the grin on her companion's face.

"Miss me yet?" Tony practically sang, suddenly cheerful at the prospect of goading Gibbs when he was totally out of range of repercussion.

"I'm barely coping," Gibbs dead-panned. "Thanks for _Taming Your Rage: A Twelve Step Guide_, DiNozzo. Have a feeling I'll be needing it."

One had to have one's fun and he'd needed to warn the team the communication was coming (he did promise). Using his credit card was the agreed upon signal and an internet café in Indiana had been the perfect opportunity. He'd had to. It wasn't optional. "Just thinking of your blood pressure, boss."

"Sure," he dismissed with only minor irritation. _Maybe he really does miss me. Hee hee hee._ "How's she holding up?"

Tony glanced at Abby's eager expression and smiled fondly, "Trooper."

"Got a little messy, I hear." Gibbs was carefully not yet outright threatening bodily harm with his tone, but it was pregnant with the distinct possibility.

"Nothing I couldn't handle. There was one security breach in Iowa, that's more of a real concern. She was recognised and confirmed by a third party. If we weren't followed, it shouldn't be a problem. They couldn't track it after the fact, trail dies completely at the first motel stop. Were we followed?"

Gibbs harrumphed agreement with his assessment, "Doesn't look like it. FBI thinks we got the drop on the start of their operation by over a week, they weren't even staking her out yet. McGee and Ziva brought in a con from their ex-pen for interrogation- we could be well on our way."

"Cool. Meanwhile?" He was deeply bummed that he couldn't grill McGiggles for details on the witness and their progress, but solving the case was not his job on this one and he had no need to know. Annoying as that was.

"Covers are in place for both of you. The courier will meet you outside Seattle, Agent McLaughlin said you'd know where."

"Thanks, boss." he wished the conversation could go on a little longer, it was nice to get grounded.

Gibbs stopped him from hanging up, "Tony."

"Yeah?"

"Reach."

"I got ya, boss. Over and out."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

"So what's our cover?" she asked, for probably the seventeenth time, as they both got ready for bed in their eighth or ninth ugly motel room.

Tony eyed her over the top of his open suitcase, then smiled and whipped out a little velvet jewellery box and snapped it open to reveal matching silver rings, two bands and one with a black onyx stone. "Congratulations, Mrs Honeycut. You bagged Seattle's most eligible bachelor."

"We're _married_?"

He put the rings down gingerly on the night stand, "Until the end of the mission do us part."

"I don't know about this, Tony. I never thought of myself as the marrying kind." She'd thought of herself as almost every other kind, but in spite of her mother's fondest hopes and her Catholic upbringing and her enduring basic personal Catholicism, she had a certain fear of taking the actual plunge. It wasn't so much the commitment, it was the recognisable and recognised holy permanence of the thing. Or maybe it was the formality, the convention. She wasn't sure. She wasn't spiritually against it or anything, it was just something that scared her a bit. Something she'd kind of decided she wasn't going to indulge in.

But he picked her up and swirled her carefully around the small room, "Darling, we'll be so good together, you'll be asking me for a full church wedding the moment bossman rescues us from Nowheresville. You might even want to use your real name."

"You think so?" she giggled.

"Sweetheart, I know so."

"So you _are_ the marrying kind, after all, Tony? Kate once told me that you told her that marriage was an artefact of very short life spans and was never supposed to last more than five years tops."

He waved away her accusatory pointing finger, "I told Kate a lot of things. She knew when I was kidding."

That put a damper on Abby's momentum and she came down off her tip toes. "You know, I don't know if she did, hun."

They shared a look and she thought she'd probably made one of the biggest mistakes of her life in not talking to him about Kate a lot more after the initial terribleness of it all died down. He'd shut it out so thoroughly and she was so able to let loose, too able a lot of people would probably say, but they could have helped each other more than they did. They were closest to her, they were closest to each other, it could have been easier. Maybe it would have been if Ari hadn't interrupted their first fresh grief with another bullet. She sighed to herself and gave Tony a stealth hug as she went past him to the bathroom to put on her nightgown.

When she came back he was dressed for bed and sitting cross-legged on top of the covers, the rings in his hand. "Well?"

"Well what?" she asked, suspiciously.

He held out the thicker wedding band towards her, "Ready to take the plunge?"

She took it and rolled it around in her palm, feeling its weight and texture, the smoothness of the metal. "Can this be a trial period? It doesn't count until you carry me over a threshold, right?"

"I believe those are the rules, yes."

"Okay!" she jumped on the bed beside him, bouncing him out of his lotus position. "We should get some Twinkies for the reception."

"First things first, my beautiful bride." He lifted up her two rings, sliding on the engagement ring first and then solemnly holding the wedding band at the end of her finger, "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow- even my DVD collection- etc. etc. plight thee my troth." He slid it on.

Abby felt weirdly moved. "'With my body I thee worship'?"

"Old Church of England stuff. My mother was English, you know. My family had that whole feud going on when I was little. I'm Switzerland: either way's fine. Just read that in a book once and I think it's really... nice." He held out his hand for her, "Anyway. Go to town."

Not sure what to say, she just put the ring on and said, "To have and to hold and sure why not. You may kiss the bride."

Somewhat to her surprise, he did. Chastely and briefly, but firmly on the lips. She tasted minty toothpaste and sunshine and laughed to herself about knowing what sunshine tasted like. As silly as it sounded, that was the flavour she meant. That quality your skin got sitting outside by the sea in July, a scent of salt and warmth and pleasant sleepiness.

"Congratulations us," Tony said again, clinking an imaginary glass with her. "We are Thomas and Allison Honeycut, married five years, both Seattle natives, I'm a photographer, you're a model. We're taking a year long sabbatical in the absolute middle of nowhere, Idaho, because you want to write a novel and we have that kind of money. Like it?"

"We _had _to be married?"

He laughed.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

She felt him roll over and knew he wasn't just shifting by the changed quality of the silence, "Pop quiz, Abs."

"Tony, I'm sleeping. This is me sleeping." She refused to open her eyes.

"_The Philadelphia Story_."

Abby sighed. "Tracy should have run off with Mike."

"That's it. I'm convinced. You're the best ever. We're soulmates."

"I'm glad."

He leaned over her and planted a kiss on her cheek, the hot imprint of his mouth rendering the air around her suddenly frigid cold as it touched where he did. "There's a magnificence in you," he quoted, not doing an impression for once. She could hear in his voice he wasn't saying it with a grin.

"Good night, professor." she quoted back, feeling warm.


	9. Incorrigible

9. Incorrigible

.

"Why Allison?"

"Because I can call you Ally and Ally sounds a lot like Abby."

"Yeah, but why Allison? Why not... uh...," she thought for a long moment, "I see your point."

His tone was dry as dust, but he couldn't keep the smile out of it, "I feel very vindicated."

"Why Thomas?"

"Tommy."

"Could have used Timmy."

Tony gave a full-body shudder, "Too weird."

"Yeah, I couldn't see you as a Timmy."

"You don't know how comforting it is to hear you say that."

"So why a photographer?"

He shrugged, "I can fake it well. Got lots of experience with high grade cameras, though some people might question the artistic validity and or tastefulness of using dead people for models. I did set up some references at a couple major Seattle magazines, we even had them print some stuff the forged document guys rigged up in their next issue. Including some very interesting pictures of you Agent Coolidge personally photoshopped. We're supposed to be kind of a big deal in the city and now, if anyone wants to check, we totally are."

"You're having way too much fun."

He grinned like a schoolboy, his eyes sparkling in anticipation of the mischief he could get up to, "I love going undercover. Especially with you, darling Ally."

"So we're never allowed to drop the name game? Never, even alone in the car or the house or the shower?"

"Never ever. Best way not to slip is to start believing your own bullshit." Uncharacteristically, he totally ignored the part where she implied they'd be in the shower together.

"That is a very bleak kind of prospect, Tommy." She was feeling daunted again. Verklempt.

"I didn't know you felt that way about our marriage. I am very hurt."

She punched him lightly, "You know that's not what I meant."

"Oh sure, sure." He sniffled theatrically.

"Tony-!" 

"Tommy."

"That's what I said!" She started giggling in the back of her throat and soon it was pushing against her lips and then it was exploding out of her mouth and she had to double over. "You are frustratingly hard to stay mad at, you know that?"

"I consider it a superpower."

"I consider it annoying."

"That's what makes it fun."

"Uh huh. So I'm a model."

"Yeah, it seemed to go with the whole photographer deal. Sort of a complementary duo. And I didn't want to give you anything anywhere near your real mad skills, but I still had to pick something you were absolutely believable for and that you could convincingly fake if you had to." He paused, sneaking cheeky looks at her for all his voice sounded like the soul of sincerity, "I gave it a lot of thought."

"I'm sure you did."

"Well," he was all charm grin and unrepentant Tonyness, "I had to be thorough. Consider all the angles."

"And what angles!" she finished for him, grinning back with a matching glint in her eye.

"Exactly."

"It's too bad I couldn't bring my chastity belt. Would have been an interesting photo shoot."

The car swerved just slightly. Tony shot her a look, gripping the wheel hard, "Don't do that."

"I didn't do anything, Tommy." The picture of innocence, she twirled the end of her short ponytail around her finger and smiled coyly over at him as she elongated his _faux_ name on the m.

Ignoring her display, he cleared his throat, "Got something cool for you in the package."

"Our Q package?" It had taken just over an entire day on the road, not including sleep, but they'd made their date with the courier and they now had a complete undercover arsenal in their trunk and brand new identities in their pockets. Tony's smart look was now a permanent feature and he'd done something to his hair that made it look surprisingly different. Which she thought was pretty impressive for hair that was only about a centimetre and a half long.

He nodded in the affirmative, "And there are indeed gadgets, 007. Mostly for me, but one for you."

"What? What?" She bounced a few times. It didn't feel the same without her pigtails, but it was still very fun. She'd been hoping there might be something interesting. She almost figured there had to be, what with the all special stuff in the trunk and the Seattle moving van full of other, non-special stuff following them to lend credence to the idea that they were from the city.

"Airbrush make-up. You can totally cover your tattoos, you can even give yourself new ones. No one will be the wiser." He glanced over to see how she was taking it, "I figure the neckweb is a little conspicuous."

"Tommy, that is both super cool and already weirding me out. Blond, tan, tattoo-free- there won't be any Abby left."

He petted the crown of her head sympathetically, letting his hand rest on the nape of her neck for a moment as he told her seriously, "Darling, the Abby is _within._"

She nodded sagely and bowed to his wise wisdomness. "You're so smart."

"I am, aren't I. You guys don't appreciate me."

Abby made an offended noise, "What did I just say!"

"Well, you're always the exception."

"I'm _except_ional."

He had to laugh at that. "Yes, you certainly are."

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

"They're _married_?" McGee hadn't been previously aware that his voice went that high. Apparently Ziva hadn't either, because the look she shot him was equal parts impressed and maliciously entertained.

"Always the best cover for a couple," Gibbs opined, seemingly oblivious to McGee's high C. "People are more inclined to trust you, less suspicious of where you came from, what you're up to. Whole bit. Used to use it all the time."

Ziva crossed her legs and looked vaguely mischievous, "But this is Tony."

"And _Abby_," McGee added.

"Yeah?" Gibbs glared them down for a second, daring them to raise further objections, then he whisked out of the room towards the elevator with an evil little smile on his face. Probably low on coffee. Or the blood of evildoers. Could go either way.

Ziva appeared at McGee's side, her eyebrows low and her mouth twisted to half its usual size. "You think they will pull it off, this marriage cover?"

"They're sure the last two people in the world you'd expect to get married. Especially to each other." He pecked at his keyboard idly, trying not to freak out any more than he already had. This was turning into a deeply stressful week. "I'd say the evidence and probability was against it."

She leaned on his desk, invading his personal space as usual, "You do not think they will get along by themselves?"

"Oh they'll get _along_, they always get along. I don't think I've ever seen them actually argue about something besides zombie movies. They're disturbingly alike once you get past the... uh, obvious."

"So?" 

"So, who are the two most incorrigible flirts you know?"

Ziva smiled, but she shook her head, "Not undercover, McGee. Tony was a very good husband to me until it turned out our only audience was the FBI."

"But you guys didn't..." he made a gesture with no intrinsic meaning.

"Nah." She walked away, swishing her hips.

He watched her progress and decided he was never going to think about that again. He almost felt better, then he remembered that Abby was not only completely and utterly, radio-silence _alone _with Tony, she was pretending to be married to him. And she got so excited about getting into character sometimes. And this was _Tony_. And he was going to need a drink.

But it wasn't like he was jealous.

"I am worried for them also." Ziva offered from her desk, not looking up from her monitor. She had copious interrogation notes to go over. Their guest hadn't been as cooperative as he'd promised to be.

McGee sat back in his chair, "What are we going to do about it?"

"Catch the bad guys," she said, almost off-handedly.

He smiled, "Of course. Why didn't I think of that?"


	10. Our Own Private Idaho

10. Our Own Private Idaho

.

The house wasn't very big but it wasn't small, either: you could probably live pretty comfortably with four people in there, though Abby wasn't sure she'd like to try it. The brief entryway opened directly into a modest living room with various doors and hallways leading to a master bedroom with en suite, second bedroom, bathroom, open concept kitchen off the dining room, sliding glass doors leading to a porch with two-seater swing, and at least two really major closets. Which would have been essential had they been staying there as themselves. She and Tony both enjoyed clothes- on an artistic, deeply emotionally expressive level, and not at all shallowly or frivolously.

The house, being roughly in the middle of its three acre lot, was well-separated from the neighbours and shaded on all sides by picturesque oak trees. This made her think of a typical newly-wed house and smacked her of having been built in the mid seventies under some misguided apprehension that the town would actually boom and have need of cheap newly-wed houses. It made Tony think "defensible perimeter" and "good visibility", because he was a crazy cop person and sometimes it was unsettling. Especially because she was smiling at the neatly painted cheerful yellow trim at the top of the off-white walls and thinking it looked like the kind of home that needed a picket fence and two point five kids. If you were into that. And _he _was smiling at the wide lentils because they were suitable for mounting range weapons if A Situation broke out.

He said the chances of that were incredibly slim. She pretended he didn't sound wistful.

The town was Challis, Idaho and it was so small Abby thought there was about a fifty-fifty split- if she'd come looking anything like herself- that they'd either burn her as a witch or treat her like a toddler and ask Tony if she were 'touched'. She'd experience both sorts of reactions, though sometimes people were disappointing oblivious. Well, they pretended to be. Their house was on one of the winding residential streets off the short main drag and there was a ridiculous amount of wide-open space all around them. If you were looking the right way you could feel like you'd reached the edge of civilisation.

It occurred to her that it wasn't the greatest hideout locale considering that she and Tony were both resolute city people who barely knew how to survive without overpriced caffeinated beverages and Chinese take out. That the characters they were playing would be just as lost in the country as they genuinely were was her only comfort. Failing to fit in to the local colour wouldn't be blowing her cover. It was just going crazy from _Caf-Pow!_ deprivation and heading off on a rampage using their NCIS-issue arsenal that she had to worry about.

It was so quiet here. She felt the mountains looming over her and the quiet closing in and it made her want to play Android Lust at a volume so ludicrous no one in a ten-mile radius would ever hear again.

And she'd only just arrived.

She just had a strong impression a person (an Abby-type person maybe especially) could be lonely here in a way she had never experienced before.

But, she was still totally excited. You couldn't be lonely with Anthony D. DiNozzo around, he was lots of people. And they were shacking up! They were under cover! They could stay up all night together watching movies, pausing them all the time to talk and throw popcorn at the bad guys! She'd never been in the country (like this) before and she was going to have an experience and it would add to her character and make her more interesting and she was going to have fun, damnit.

She went back to the truck to help carry more boxes of mystery stuff into the house. She hoped the personal possessions of Ally Honeycut didn't turn out to be too tragically boring.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Tony was carrying a box that had to weigh about fifty-five pounds and could only contain some kind of decorator rock when the stocky, blonde jogger whom he'd observed approaching from the distance for his last fours trips finally made it to the end of the drive way. A familiar little jolt of electricity travelled through his central nervous system as she slowed to a walk and changed course to intersect with him, shouting a greeting. A first neighbourly welcome was obviously in store for Thomas Honeycut.

Show time.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

"So the people who live three houses over want us to know that we are cordially invited to the county's summer festival at the community centre and that there will be a little casual dancing." He picked up a knick-knack from the box he was rooting through (his typically male idea of unpacking being to spread the mess out over the floor in an even layer), "I think this is the second ugliest thing I've ever seen."

"Casual dancing," she repeated, sounding sceptical.

"Yeah, I figure that means you better either know how to do steps or have good enough rhythm to convincingly fake it."

Abby put down the cutlery she'd been sorting into drawers, "How do you figure that?"

Now he was peering through an ornamental desk spyglass, his face all scrunched up, "I know these things, darling. There are old fashioned manners at work here. Probably have horsey people living all over the outskirts of the blue collar mainstream population."

"Horsey people?"

"The kind of people who put up their animals in 'Equestrian Neighbourhoods' with stables nicer than most hotels, and then sit around all day talking to each other about flanks and hands high and teeth. It's like NASCAR for snobs. You know." He polished the spyglass on his sleeve and looked through it again, "I used to rub elbows with that type a lot. Something about having way too much money and caring about polo seems to rot the brain."

Her imagination supplied her with an image of Tony playing polo with a hockey stick while wearing leather chaps, a jockstrap, aviators and nothing else. She shook her head, "Sometimes I forget about your misspent youth as one of the megarich."

He made a noise in his throat somewhere between a scoff and a sigh, "So do I."

"Probably better that way."

"Probably."

She threw a set of tea towels towards the gas stove, planning to hang them later. Who packed tea towels _under _the silverware? "What's the first ugliest thing?"

Tony's mind also being something like a pachinko machine, he answered without hesitation as he continued his perusal of the random household accoutrements splayed in front of him, "McGeek post-poison ivy."

"Good call," she agreed, giggling at the memory and feeling only a tiny bit guilty. Even McGee himself couldn't deny that it was pretty funny. After the swelling had gone down, that is. "Are we going to the community dancing thing?"

He stood up, brushing dust from his jeans, "It'd fit in well with our story, let us scope out the town. If the lady has no objection?"

"I do a mean jitterbug, Thomas."

Grinning, he did a little dance for her. "That reminds me, we've got stories to write. Connect the dots kind of stories. Where did we meet and fall in love, Mrs Honeycut?"

Even as she smiled at him, she felt an odd pang. She really wasn't much of an actress and now that they were settling in, their little story felt increasingly less like the game she had thought it would be. Fear hung in the back of her mind, but it had faded into an abstract: she didn't let it seep into her consciousness during daylight hours and Tony's presence beside her at night kept the dreams at bay. The less real the assassins seemed, the more real the cover situation seemed. And her old life felt further and further away.

"Can we fall in love in Venice?"

Tony gave her that sideways look of his, both suggestive and teasing, "Ever been?"

Abby shook her head.

"Me neither. On the off chance someone from this town has..." he shrugged apologetically.

She pushed him onto the couch and spread out beside him, her legs flung over his. "Where's romantic that we've actually been?"

"Cadiz? Mexico City? Paris? Paris is too cliché. We should probably just meet at work."

Abby pouted at the practicality, but he was definitely right. Otherwise, what was the point of their complementary professions? And, anyway, it was true. They did meet at work. "Should we get along right away?" she poked him, grinning mischievously.

"That would be lying, wouldn't it?" he grinned back. "I guess we should just tell the truth, shouldn't we? You instantly hated me and my taste and my looks and pretty much everything about me."

She was blushing a bit, hearing it laid out like that bringing home the unfairness of her quick judgement. "I'm sorry, Anthony."

He made a frowny face and shook an admonishing finger at her use of his real name. "Nothing to be sorry for, darling, I _am_ repulsively good-looking and way too charming. It puts people off, I get that."

She kicked him gently.

"What was our break through?"

Thinking about it, she drew a blank. "I have no idea."

"Thanks."

She kicked him again, harder, "Don't be a dick."

"Can't help it."

"Yes, you can." She threw an arm over her eyes and tried to think of something that could happen on a photo-shoot to make her see the Thomas behind the Tommy the way she had suddenly seen the Anthony behind the Tony. "I don't know, maybe I didn't want to do some risqué thing and you were all gallant about it at the risk of losing your job."

"Now that doesn't sound like either of us."

Abby giggled. "I thought that was the point."

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

"You know I don't clean." Tony could have been commenting idly on the décor by the ease and nonchalance of his tone. He was hanging a painting they both thought looked a bit like a cross section of auto paint chips under a scanning electron microscope and had- simultaneously- dubbed 'The Electric Rainbow'.

Abby just smiled to herself, "That's fine, darling, as long as you know that I don't cook."

She'd asked him about his suddenly much more frequent and pronounced use of pet names for her- not that she minded even a little bit, she actually could not mind any less- and he'd explained that he liked the sound of them- very Cary Grant- number one, and number two: you can't mess up and call someone the wrong pet name and confuse the neighbours, where he very well could call her the wrong Christian name. Every time he wanted to say her name, he called her darling instead. And, he was quick to add, sometimes he just wanted to call her darling.

She'd told him he was brilliant and prepared to relish the free rein this gave her to call him almost whatever she liked, including sweet-cheeks, honey-bum, and Hollywood (which she had used as his name exclusively for about a month when she was still transitioning away from the waiting-for-the-swelling-to-go-down period of getting used to the piercing that was Tony). Though she'd admit she shared his Cary Grant-ish preference for 'darling'. There was something so simultaneously domestic and romantic about it. Very classic.

"Sounds like a fair trade." Tony said.

"I thought so," she said, satisfied with herself. Abby knew he could cook like a boss.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

"What are you doing?"

Tony was upside down in what could be described as a sort of gymnastics arch except that it involved his knees being over the back of the couch, his back resting against the side of the seat cushion and his hands being on the floor.

"Lazy handstand," he said, making her smile. Three days into their cohabitation, she was starting to suspect she and Tony were the world's most perfectly matched room mates. Like a set of themed salt and pepper shakers: different but complementary.

"Does that help you think? Because I tried that once and-"

She was cut off by his dragging her onto the couch and then pulling himself up and into her lap, his long legs flopping over the sofa's arm. "I thought of this. And this was a great idea."

She smiled indulgently and scratched her fingers through his hair, fluffing it up. It grew so fast, she was sure it was longer than it had been when they left: soft instead of spiky. "What should we do?" They'd covered their imaginary families, their first date, their anniversary traditions, their housing history, their wedding (not Catholic, because Tony's mother- his real mother- wanted him Christened Anglican and Abby was denominationally flexible), even the state of their bank accounts.

This left them a little wide open, activity-wise.

"Could play chess... screw..." Tony's Gene Wilder sounded more like a head cold, but it was still cute.

"I know I'm supposed to follow hard on that line with 'Let's play chess', but I'm thinking maybe the other option doesn't sound so bad."

They giggled together a moment, but it passed too quickly and Abby was left feeling a tingling warmth where he lay across her thighs, hyper aware of the weight of his head. They found themselves staring at each other a little more intently than either of them would have liked, the sparkle of laughter fading into something else entirely in mirrored pairs of sincere green eyes shaded by dangerously heavy lids.

Tony launched himself off the couch and headed into the kitchen shouting back to her about getting a beer and did she want one and the dinner he was going to cook her tonight and all the movies this would give him a chance to show her and how he wished he had his collection with him but he was pretty sure he wouldn't get kicked out of the _federales_ for torrenting a few classics he'd already bought upwards of three times (VHS, DVD, Blu ray, _laserdisc_, because he was that big of a dork). When he handed her the beer and they clinked the bottles' necks in toast, their smiles were both wry and sheepish.

It was becoming so obvious it was bordering on making even their mad intimate, bullet-proof, and rock steady friendship awkward. That was, their sexual tension. They'd never spent so many consecutive hours alone together before and it was making a world of difference to know that Gibbs was not going to walk in at the worst possible moment and ruin the flow of the flirtation. That, in fact, no one was going to walk in. Not even Palmer. They were totally alone with their mutual attractiveness and their almost-to-the-point-of-the-uncanny compatibility.

The way it looked they could address this problem (and it was absolutely going to become a problem, Tony could see this a mile off) two ways: first, they could lock themselves up in the house for a couple days and deal with it like bunnies. Like mercenary, Vulcan bunnies. Second, they could admit it to each other, steadfastly declare their total lack of desire to 'go there' and laugh off the whole idea.

Neither option appealed much to him. Both were actually getting up there towards Morally Yucky, in his opinion. The second one would be flat out lying (he, at least, could not deny that part of him totally did want to 'go there') and the first wasn't something he thought he could go through with any more. He couldn't _just _sleep with Abby, it had been a really long time since _just _sleeping with Abby had even looked like an option in his wildest dreams. In all honesty, it was probably never an option anywhere else. She'd hated him and then there'd been Specialness and Understanding and from that point onward, he'd realised that this was the most healthy and stable relationship he had ever had (especially with a woman) and he was not going to fuck it up.

Because he lied to himself about being one of those people who could do the with-benefits thing and not get attached. He so, so couldn't. This was why he didn't go out with the same girl more than three times. He was needy and clingy and he knew that about himself. Hated it, but knew it, and there was no sense kidding a kidder.

No way was he going to lie to Abby and push her away, either. It wouldn't _work_ even if he had the stones to try.

Which left him with exactly no options, and that was a matter of some concern. He liked to have options. Not as much as he was enjoying this opportunity to see deep inside the funky awesome abyss that was the world of Sciuto, but since he had more than a vague idea of how dire the consequences might be of looking too closely (the abyss looks also into you, you know) he was a little nervous. And he hated to be nervous, it made it so difficult to be nauseatingly confident and that's what he had to be: it was expected of him.

"Maybe we should get jobs," he threw it out there.

Abby took a swig of her beer, "I thought we were on vacation from our super stressful, tragically rad, high society Seattle life."

"Maybe we should start a project."

"Want to teach me Italian?"

He couldn't think of anything half as lovely, intimate, and romantic. Especially if they stocked up on red wine. "_Qual è la cosa peggiore che potrebbe succedere_?"

"Sure?" Abby looked confused but captivated. He was in trouble.


	11. A Day in the Life

_AN: Hey guys, very sorry about the hiatus. Gibbsed you a bit, didn't I? I am dealing with some hard times personally and haven't been much in the spirit of writing. I will still be plugging away at it whenever I can, and there will be updates even if they aren't regular. Thank you all for your patience and support. Love you all._

_._

11. A Day in the Life

.

They almost invariably woke up in a kind of human pretzel (Abby had never even briefly entertained the notion that they wouldn't sleep in the same bed, but Tony had started waffling about there being a futon when they first arrived and she'd had to stare him down until he shut up. Honestly, boys were so silly), with legs all over here and arms all over there and sometimes their noses pressed together and sometimes Abby sprawled across Tony's chest with her chin tucked over his shoulder. It was way nice, especially since he always waited until she woke up to move if he was up first and she did the same for him. Then he brought her coffee, because she was not a morning person- or any kind of person- until she'd had some caffeine. He wasn't a morning person either, in the traditional sense, but he didn't idle well. Not when he wasn't at his desk where people could see him, anyway.

Tony made breakfast while Abby set the table and then he always made her Vice President in Charge of Toast and Buttering Same. When they were eating they always played I Spy in sometimes hilariously broken Italian. Abby was not one of those people sensitive about her shortcomings as she learned and she never got offended when he had to beg her to stop before his rib cage actually exploded. As long as he explained it to her afterwards, that was. Not telling her what she'd accidentally said could result in the death stare and without-a-forensic-trace threats.

Abby did the dishes and Tony entertained her with dramatic readings from the books of the Honeycut library. Apparently the NCIS agents who'd selected their belongings thought they should have appalling taste and it came in two flavours: ditzy romance novels or overblown spy stories dripping with machismo. Tony cast them with his favourite actors and did terrible impressions and Abby was once pretty sure she'd actually cough up a kidney from laughing so hard.

Then they went for a run. She was not a runner of her own free will very often, but it was one of the things Tony loved most in the world and he made puppy eyes at her and couldn't possibly leave her alone, darling. Gibbs would flay him. In fairness, he was very patient with her total lack of technique and her conviction that her lungs were melting and seeping up her windpipe. Sometimes he ran circles around her while offering encouragement and advice. Sometimes she tried harder and did better, sometimes she just cussed him out. It kept the variety up.

("Didn't you- _gasp_- have the -_gasp_- plague, should you- _gasp_- do this?"

"Best thing for it. Come on, three more miles."

"I want a divorce.")

It turned out very romantically at the end of the first week when she stepped wrong and he gave her a piggyback ride all the way home. She could have made it under her own power, of course, but she enjoyed being carried and Tony had that wonderful chivalrous streak that was ripe for exploitation. She liked the contrariness of that in him (he could also be amazingly _un_chivalrous) because being contrary was probably her most consistent character trait after being chipper and Goth. Usually in that order.

At this point, after showers and a epic scrabble game ("When you said you were a great speller, I did not believe you." "And now you see your mistake.") and lunch, it was time to doll up Abby for excursions into the neighbourhood. They could have holed up, but Tony was of the opinion that small town type people would find that more suspicious than anything else and that the more locals they knew by sight the safer. Besides which, he contended Abby was likely to get bored and start dissecting him for science. He wanted to teach her to blend and they both knew- without being so crass as to say so out loud- that it was going to be no small task.

The first time they airbrushed her neckweb was something of an adventure in awkwardness.

She had wandered into the bathroom in her skirt and a bra, feeling cold and anxious and not a little ridiculous for being so anxious. And subsequently feeling even more ridiculous about her sudden self-consciousness in front of Tony, with whom she had shared far more intimate moments under far more embarrassing circumstances. She could recall a few choice incidents being on the other end of his wire for overnight missions.

Still, his slim fingers were tingly cool against her shoulder as they slid along- "Tony, what are you doing?"

"Moving your bra strap so I don't get make-up all over it." His forehead was scrunched in concentration as he studied the airbrush gun, then her neck, in some consternation, "Don't call me that."

"Tony..."

He covered her face with the flat of his hand and tilted her head away from the weird tickle of the airbrush's moist spray. She held her breath and fought the urge to lick his palm and mess it all up and not have to go anywhere or pretend to be anyone.

"This bra doesn't fit me right, anyway. You screwed up the size."

"Lies."

Abby huffed. "You didn't even look."

"Don't need to," he busied himself putting the gun away. They both knew he totally looked. She felt smug until she saw herself in the mirror.

It was almost disorienting, definitely disconcerting. She'd had that tattoo for a long, long time; it had become as much a part of her reflection and her idea of herself as the colour of her eyes or the mole on her left elbow. It was part of her body and its disappearance affected her more sharply than she had anticipated. The silly fear she'd been battling of being eaten alive by her cover reared its absurd head again.

"It all comes out in the wash, sweetheart." Tony sounded like Franko P., an ex-navy wannabe mobster he'd been on one of the first undercover cases he'd worked with NCIS.

"Yeah?" she felt small in his shadow.

He flashed her his most dazzling smile, "Fuhguddaboutit."

If she'd never understood anything about Tony before, she understood something then.

She understood less as they strolled through town and he became something of an urban effete. Not that that personality possibility didn't always bubble dangerously on his sartorially-conscious surface, but he had so much legit butchery and manliness backing it up, it really wasn't something anyone was going to make an issue. Well, sometimes guys had: she'd heard many PD stories, but that had been a younger, even prettier Tony. He'd always be a pretty boy, but his elfish young faun quality was greatly tempered by the far side of thirty and about twenty pounds of muscle. Not that she'd considered his college pictures proof he could have been an excellent drag queen, or anything. Not that she'd mentioned this to him.

It was tough to be a tough guy with pouty lips and stupidly long eyelashes, he'd said. But he managed it. He hadn't said that part. That, she was more than capable of inferring.

Abby then remembered they'd discussed their cover personalities. She was to be worldly the way that only a girl raised by the fashion industry could be, but she was not to be smart.

("Go ahead and be cunning, conniving- you know you like that- but don't be smart."

"But I am smart."

"Exactly.")

And she'd decided to go less Shopworn Angel and more friendly ditz with a razor edge. She felt like that was definitely something she could pull off.

"Hollywood, were you always ridiculously good-looking or did you go through an awkward phase?"

Tony cocked an eyebrow at her, putting down the antique whatever he'd probably been trying to show her before she so rudely illustrated how little attention she was paying. "Awkward phase."

Abby hurried after him as he wandered out of the shop and back onto Main Street, "Reaalllllllly?"

"This is not a conversation we are having, just so you know."

She had to clamp down on the desire to bounce and giggle, "We so are."

"Ally."

"No seriously, tell me. _Tell _me."

He threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close so he could nip her on the ear. "It's not like it's interesting. I do not have pictures. Just know that... us guys sometimes need to grow into our features. Had a step-mom say that once. Turns out she was right: only time ever, I think."

She slid her hand across his back and into his jeans' pocket, feeling like all the undercover crap gave her a right to be proprietary in kind. "That's it?"

"Well that, and I've found out you probably shouldn't be six-two and a hundred and forty-five pounds. Didn't grow that ass you're enjoying until third year of college."

Abby was not one to blush that easy and she just grinned cheekily up at him, "See, I was hoping for acne and braces- something I could tell McGee to keep him warm at night."

He flashed his- nicely straight- teeth at her, "All natural, babe."

"Hollywood is so your best nickname. I've decided to pride myself on it."

"Why did you call me that, anyway?" Tony looked thoughtful, remembering the name's genesis during the rocky period of their friendship, "That was before you knew I have kind of a thing for cinema."

Abby smiled at the understatement, "Duh. I thought you were big, dumb and pretty. Hollywood."

"Now my feelings are hurt."

She squeezed him, "Shouldn't be. I've since realised you're from the Golden Age- when the men were men, the women were Katherine Hepburn, and actors had to be talented."

"I always wanted to be compared to Katherine Hepburn." He kissed her on the nose and she laughed.

Their trips into town were mainly for provisions and for Tony's lessons on how to be an obliviously wealthy socialite whose time around the block was starting to get the misty look of a memory around it. He told her to try to judge people based on what they were wearing- not enough to be a serious jerk, but enough to not be Abby- and ended up whispering peanut gallery comments in her ear to encourage the uncharitable thought process. He told her to have a sense of superiority, as if money could buy her out of any trouble she might ever conceivably have in life, but never to become too careless. She hadn't been privileged from birth, he reminded, and that made her just that bit jealous of her cash. Tommy Honeycut was born to the purple and barely knew the value of a dollar, he said. She must interfere in his extravagance and open-armed attitude once in a while.

Trying to convince herself to pretend Tony was naïve was too great a stretch for her, and her resulting nervous misstep ended in their inviting someone and his wife over to dinner. When Tony turned on the charm, everything happened very quickly and everybody parted friends.

It all troubled her, she thought, because she knew it was true he'd been born to the purple- but he had _not _been born to privilege. It rankled her when he shaped her into what he obviously knew far too well and probably hated.

But their covers were basically good people, he was quick to explain. He was trying to develop a palate, here, Ally. Things for you to work with. A background, warts and all, because realistic flaws made the most convincing wool to pull over a target's eyes.

Abby felt like she was seeing behind the DiNozzo curtain more than she really wanted to in all these tricks. Then she was ashamed of the selfishness of the thought. _I do want to set you free from yourself, my darling friend._

And then there was having locals over for dinner.


	12. The Home Front

11. The Home Front

.

Ziva had not seen her own bed for four and a half nights. She hadn't slept in it for more than a few hours at a stretch in over a month. Gibbs was taking the fact that the assassins were really good at their job very personally. She didn't see the strategic advantage depriving herself of comfortable sleep in favour of curling up behind her desk could give her, but it was best not to question the team leader when he had that thunderous expression on his face. Besides, she might be about to prove once again that, no matter how good someone was, there was always someone better. And that she was usually that person.

And she was not at all bothered or motivated by the cover story.

"I have my first word on the assassins, could be full of food."

After all, she had first hand experience of what it was like to be undercover as Tony's wife, and romantic was probably the last word she would use to describe it. Not that she cared if it was romantic for them or not. It was just strange to think of them as a collective, an item. She had always categorised Abby separately from herself, Tony, and McGee. Not having factored the forensic scientist in as a part of the team unit, never before had she suspected that her place as a partner could be usurped from that quarter. She found herself resenting it in a most unreasonable and unproductive fashion. Because, of course, Tony was the one who was really her partner- McGee was in another context altogether.

Not that she did not have her doubts, either. About the cover.

"Do you mean fruitful?"

"That is what I said, yes?"

"Not exactly."

Though she sensed uncharacteristic reluctance from said true partner to really gang up with her on the weakest member of the herd, poor McGee, upon whom he was perfectly willing to prey in almost all other circumstances. She had felt Tony catching himself and changing tact when she tried to join in, felt his moment of uneasiness, a glimpse in his face of something deeper than she had supposed could be there. This peculiar exclusion she had long ago added to the very short list of things she would not pry into, because her finely tuned manipulative instincts told her that this was one of those things having to do with the lost one.

Ziva knew something about lost ones.

She narrowed her eyes at McGee and savoured the way the blood drained from his face. It always did to cultivate a healthy sense of fear to keep the men in line. "The assassins escaped supermax security with the unintentional help of a guard. His campaigning for more ethical treatment is what allowed them to gather the cash and small tools they needed that our friend in interrogation now admits he scattered."

"The prison yard," McGee caught on.

"This guard insisted that their designated exercise area was too small."

"And the common yard would still be under surveillance and thus wouldn't break supermax protocol."

"The corridors on the way there, on the other hand... It is quite clever. They could pass things and they could have time alone with their keepers. Possibly there were bribes."

He put down the pen he'd been rolling between his left index finger and thumb, "I guess we're going back to sing sing."

Her doubts (about the cover) weren't like McGees's: she doubted, for one, that either of them would be so foolish as to make a pass at someone else while their lives were at stake. It was more along the lines of her doubt that anyone could be convinced of a sexuality between them.

There wasn't the slightest spark.

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Simon Bingham and his wife Sarah were perfectly ordinary middle-aged people who had lived in Challis all their lives. Abby felt like she was talking to space aliens. She'd made a mental note to look up the area on her crop circle web forum to see if there were any shady dealings in the town's past. It never hurt to be too vigilant about these things.

Though, disappointingly, she figured they must be human. Simon gave her the same preposterously sunny smile he'd given her on the day that they met on the street and she knew from long experience this was because she was adorable and he couldn't help it. She'd smiled back with only half her usual force, because she was frankly terrified about trying to maintain her cover for an extended and intimate period of time. Tony, the consummate professional, said she would do fine and even if she didn't, he was a superhero and capable of getting her out of almost any scrape short of her going crazy and spilling the whole can of beans.

She did get a good chuckle out of introducing Sarah to said superhero. A rapid series of expressions with which Abby was well familiar (having watched this happen many times) subtly contorted the older woman's face: a slight start of shock, a sly goofiness, momentary embarrassment, and a lingering dreaminess that vaguely resembled intoxication. The look normal people sported after an unexpected encounter with the improbably good-looking. Tony, who pointedly never noticed this when it happened, just shook her hand and smiled.

It suddenly occurred to Abby to wonder about his instant retreats whenever a woman pursued him instead of vice versa. It clearly wasn't that he was intimidated by strong personalities. She could never manage him like she managed Gibbs, not to mention the fact that he wasn't actually scared of Gibbs himself, which it was scaring her just to think about. It was always her people came to when they wanted something from the bossman, but there were places where even she feared to tread. Not many, it had to be admitted, but there were definitely some. Tony couldn't wind Gibbs around his finger like she could, but he had once told him to butt the hell out of some tricky thing he was doing with a suspect and he had lived to tell about it. More impressively, Gibbs had actually butt the hell out. What call had a man with those kind of _cajones_ to be afraid of a woman who knew what she wanted?

Besides, he dug a female who could take care of herself. He was nothing but proud of his various partners' ability to take names, all of whom were women and at least one of whom could definitely Israeli-ninja kick his ass seven ways from Sunday. Abby wouldn't want to have had to lay odds on who'd win a real fight between him and Kate, because Secret Service training or not, street fighting someone twice your size, several times your strength, and with more experience had its logistical limitations. Not that they would ever have fought a real fight, because they'd either both be trying to throw it or both be cheating. Either way, Kate wasn't taking any shit off him and Abby had seen the sparks they'd both studiously ignored for the sake of their sanity and rule twelve.

Point being, she didn't know what exactly he was afraid of, but she was beginning to think there was a perimeter defence she'd infiltrated without even realising it.

In his chic glasses, a black turtle-neck and brown blazer, with the highlights they'd eventually decided to put in his now longer, stylishly dishevelled hair, Tony was starting to look like the kind of rich ivy league pseudo-intellectual who hung out in coffee bars with copies of Plato strategically opened in front of them. He'd even bought an acoustic guitar to display in the living room, like the kind of yuppie dork who wouldn't stop playing the same three chords at parties and thought he had the soul of poet. Watching him interact with the mundanes, she felt in over her head all over again.

He was an extraordinary actor. It wasn't just the way he changed his manner, the way he wasn't coming off at all flirty or boisterous or threatening, or any of the things that were so fundamentally Tonyish: it was the way he'd taken away the cares, the competence, the gleam of intrigue behind his eyes. If she met him like this, she would be one hundred percent convinced that he'd never struggled for anything in his life, that he'd never been in a fight, and that he was no more capable of higher thought than of levitation. His conversation glossed weighty subjects in a way that suggested low understanding without ever betraying his hand. Tommy Honeycut came off harmlessly shallow and a teensy bit dim. Someone who thought they were cultured and was mistaken, not because he was a boor but because he lacked insight.

It was a virtuoso performance. If ever there was an old money fashion photographer who thought he was an artist and resoundingly wasn't, this was him. Charming and pretty and empty of head.

It wasn't even like Abby didn't know he could do this, he'd been doing various versions of it throughout their entire acquaintance. She was pretty sure she was the only person who ever called him on it, though she was not the only person who ever saw through it. Sometimes he dropped every layer of his mask, and it was a shock like a punch to the gut.

This was probably why even Gibbs listened to him when he decided he had to say something, because Serious Tony was almost as scary as Serious Gibbs.

Still, even knowing the kind of transformation of which he was capable, it wasn't like being exposed to the total annihilation of his real personality like this. In spite of his long commitment to playing dumb on the job, she'd never seen the penetrating wit and canniness so gone from his eyes. The vacuous cheerfulness in its place made him look younger by years. Watching him from her place beside Sarah, a glass of wine held limply in her left hand, she felt like the house was adrift at sea and listing dangerously. How did you play a part so completely that you weren't playing a part? No matter how much he tried to tell her not to play it, but to think it and act naturally, she couldn't make herself live what he meant.

"Right, darling?" he turned to her, his smile achingly sweet.

Abby nodded, the world righting itself as he patted her knee over the coffee table. She saw his empty glass and seized the opportunity to take herself out of the room. "Another Tom Collins, Hollywood?"

Tony inclined his head and Simon glanced between them, "Hollywood?"

_Think the part, think the part, think the part... _"His school nickname. Tommy wanted to be an actor," she made her voice teasing, but with a slight edge of derision, like Ally thought it was a ridiculous thing for her husband to have wanted. "That was before he realised he belongs behind the camera."

"I don't know," Sarah said, eyeing him sceptically. "Didn't you ever try modelling yourself?"

Tony laughed at this like it was an old joke, shaking his head dismissively.

Abby picked up the thread, "People always ask him that."

"Ally is the _objet d'art _in this composition, I'm just an observer, you know. I don't feel like I can speak without her to give me something to say, you know what I mean? Do you like art? It's like I'm the brush, right- but she's the paint. I can't paint without... paint. Besides, I'm not that photogenic. I belong in motion!"

The conversation drifted and Abby wandered off to make the drink, feeling good about herself. If Ally was a little bit jealous of her place as the star in the relationship, the artist, that made it easier to imagine why she was with a man who was so utterly without guile. Somehow Tony manipulating her into looking manipulative and controlling of him made the whole mess just ironic enough to be funny, and just funny enough to bear. It struck a nice balance with the irony of the fact that Tony somehow erasing the slight quality of intimidation he usually had around people who didn't know him had intimidated her.

When she passed the drink to him over the back of his chair, he thanked her with a brief kiss on the mouth. It seared through her like a shot of whiskey, and she went back to the sofa feeling tingles on the pads of her feet and the ends of her fingers. Somehow he'd managed to tell her through that tiny contact how proud he was of her, that he'd seen her get it, and it made the kiss genuine in a way she hadn't expected.

The Tony she'd given a hundred chaste pecks as a friend didn't seem quite the same as the Tony who had just passed major emotion to her, lips to lips, and she battled a flush as she watched him through her lowered eyelashes. There was a smudge of her pink lipstick at the fullest part of his lower lip, and her perceptions were slightly realigned by the flutter the sight caused in her abdomen.

She felt like she'd broken some taboo and a wall had come down. Possibly a wall that it would have been much safer to leave up.


	13. Situation Abnormal

13. Situation Abnormal

.

If there was anything she had habitually taken totally for granted in almost all of her close relationships, it was probably acceptance on the other party's part of the ingenuousness of her touchy-feely ways. It was the one avenue where she was pretty genuinely innocent even as she made that extraordinarily hard to believe with her various rapports and running commentaries. The truth was, however, that she didn't mean anything by it and everyone was cool with that. Signals were not crossed.

It was not until this very instant she had ever really noticed how breezily, easily, and naïvely intimate this particular relationship had become. Had been for so long she'd forgotten it was ever anything else. How safe it had gotten after years of friendship to tease at the possibility of sexuality because the real thing was now taboo far beyond reach. How safe in turn it was to allow herself to feel deeply, because they _were _just friends.

And now she felt like she had stepped wrong and the world had fallen out of sync.

"Do you realise the entire town is calling me Tommy Hollywood now? Do you realise that?" Tony threw himself onto the couch beside her despondently. She found herself edging away slightly, feeling like she was sweating buckets: hot and awkward as a thirteen year-old boy.

"Complaining?" she teased, trying to sound as cheeky and casual as she would have before the shock to the system. She had not felt as ridiculous as this with anyone for something like a decade. Probably longer. Maybe she never had. Her precociousness and self-confidence had developed in the womb, if her parents were to be believed, but all those years of shamelessness were failing her now. This was one of the very few entanglements she'd never gotten herself into before.

Tony's hand fell on her shoulder, making her jump. "Still rattled?"

Of course he missed nothing. Between his profession, his pathological nosiness, and the fact that they'd spent every waking moment together for two months, it would have been surprising indeed if she could have got anything past him. "A bit."

He hugged her gently with one arm and the struggle to keep her blood pressure down required her to notice how careful were his fingers as they curled around her biceps, how aware he seemed to be of exactly where he could not accidentally touch.

Abby felt like a idiot as common sense hit her like thirty pounds of bricks.

_He'd _been fully cognisant of the tightrope they were walking for who knew how long. She'd been safe because he was on top of it. Cripes and crawdads. She looked up and caught his eyes, wondering if he ever quit contorting himself into whatever he thought other people wanted or needed him to be.

"It's not so bad, you know," he said seriously. "Sometimes it's a relief not having to be yourself."

Abby, in real danger of bursting into tears, fought the urge to run away from the terrifying honesty of that supposed reassurance. "Would you know, Tommy?" Was he ever himself to need to get away from it?

Tony frowned, picking up on her emphatic use of the cover name. He seemed to wrestle a moment and she definitely expected him to turn it all around into some crack about how hard it was to be a DiNozzo like he always did, but he just looked away. "Yeah, sure."

He ruffled her blonde bob as he left to get ready for bed.

Staring after him, she wanted to punch some sense into him and she wanted to hug him until he finally accepted the fact that people liked him for who he was. That she liked him always, but liked him most in those flashes of clarity where she suddenly penetrated all his obfuscation and saw something she recognised. This took her back around to the terrifying intersection between the fact that she'd loved him for years, comfortable in the knowledge that their friendship posed no threat to her status quo and she could feel free to care completely about him as she cared only about a select few, and the fact that perhaps that friendship wasn't half so iron-clad safe from being more than that as she had supposed.

That, _in_ fact, she was now pretty sure that Tony at least had noticed an increasingly obvious sexual tension becoming a problem some weeks ago. If he had not _always _known it was real and could burst the damn at any moment. If she hadn't just let him lull her into the delusion that nothing would ever change.

Abby now remembered pre-Kate, two-man team days of the dark-haired, lithe and slender Tony with cheekbones that could cut glass and the impossibly long, clever fingers she'd watched with her breath held. The fullness of his mouth and the striking size of his eyes even more pronounced in a slimmer face; his potential for threat somehow greater then than now for all he had been smaller, more wiry than muscled, his lanky body fluidly graceful as a snake. His responses to her flirtations back then were always an attractive mix of bemused disbelief and a smoulder of promise that he could cash any check she cared to write on that front if only he were sure she meant it. Dates were made that neither of them were kidding about, but they never went and they'd laugh off ever having made them.

Somehow her 'boy-toys only' brain knew there was something dangerously real afoot in this unprecedented spark with a man she would have dismissed out of hand if Gibbs hadn't forced her to work with him. He was utterly unlike anyone she had ever gone out with in every conceivable way and her curiosity was peaked.

Then he'd changed personae: he flirted back with clumsy overtness instead of taking her in like she was some kind of fine wine, he played dumb jock (and did his best to look like one), he played perv to the cusp of vulgarity, he took her out for beer and acted like an hilariously incorrigible womanising ass. Mystery retreated. They were friends. The danger passed, she forgot the unmistakable charge that had crackled between them when he wandered down to the lab alone, forgot that she'd decided she had to have him at least once or they'd never get past it. She forgot that he'd once cast a look at her that had rendered her totally speechless, even almost forgot that he could be sexy. Like getting used to a new tattoo, his sex appeal faded into her generalised image of him; recognised, but no longer consciously noticed.

It was not at all outside of possibility that he'd done this on purpose. That he was _that_ aware of their relationship. People and their feelings towards him were his thing, he _got _feelings and he knew how to change them. Until his were too mixed up in them, she supposed, thinking of how his powers sometimes broke down.

And now she was in a real mess, because she wasn't the marrying kind and even with all the stresses and terrors and aggravations this particular situation involved, this 'being married' experience was the happiest two months she'd spent since she couldn't remember when. She didn't feel like the same person any more, but not in the way that she'd feared.

He was unlike anyone she'd ever dated or been attracted to and maybe that was the thing. Maybe he wasn't the only one with the perimeter defence and maybe she wasn't the only one who'd slipped past the guards without even realising or meaning to. The whole thing, the way they didn't hit it off because she hated judgement by appearances so much that she'd judged him by his, the way they looked like they belonged in totally different worlds but had all the important things in common, the way the attraction wasn't always obvious and being tight as family was just as satisfying... maybe that's what she needed.

There was an undeniable possibility that she had grown up enough to want the person she slept with to be someone she loved. Someone she loved was was now living with her, protecting her, and becoming more fascinating every day at the same time that she was starting to burn for him. A want she'd buried years ago, flaring inexorably upwards. She was starting to think she never wanted this exile to end.

And if that was the case, she might have to rethink her life.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

"Tony- Tommy- wake up!"

He hummed in protest, swatting vaguely in her direction. She was much farther away than usual. He remembered now the weird scene at bedtime and Abby's uncharacteristic quietness. He'd decided to chalk it up to the strain of the cover being tested and the fear of discovery and to think no more about it. That he suspected there was more to it than that at this point, he was trying not to know.

Abby reached over to smack him on the shoulder, "Tommy, listen! What is that?"

He rolled over, blinking groggily against the dim, green light of the digital alarm clock's illuminated numbers. He listened. "Coyotes," he muttered disinterestedly and started to roll over again. Honestly, she avoids conversation all evening and then she wants to talk about wildlife at three hundred hours.

She grabbed at him again, "How do you know what coyotes sound like?"

"Discovery channel. Go to sleep, sweetheart." Feeling like it was very magnanimous of him to be this easy to get along with after a rude awakening, he gathered her to his chest like an oversized doll and smushed her face into his sternum with the weight of his arms to inhibit further conversation.

Abby wriggled and tickled herself free, and then used him as a pillow (tossing herself back so roughly that the breath was knocked out of him; for someone with such a slim frame, she packed a lot of force). "You watch too much TV."

"Mmmhmm," he sighed, "prob'ly."

"Hey Hollywood, do you actively read? I mean, books. Real books? I always wondered that about you for some reason." Her breathing felt fast as she lay against him and he could see her twisting her fingers in her lap. He felt too hot, suddenly thirsty, and no longer sleepy.

"Sure," he stayed completely casual. Why were they having this conversation in the middle of the night and why did it feel so strange? It wasn't like it was the first time she'd gotten bored of sleeping.

"Really?"

He put his hands behind his head to stop himself finger-combing her hair out of the bed head rat's nest it had become, "Yeah. Before I got into actual sports in College instead of what they called athletics in military school, I used to read a lot. Not so much any more. It's hard to sit still."

"And yet you can watch every movie ever made. Back to back."

"S'different."

"Uh huh," she sounded sceptical. "What do you read now, or do you?"

"All the legal changes and procedural ordinance for the year, new textbooks in the field, everyone's reports; all riveting stuff." He yawned. "I guess that's not really reading. More like exercising your cop muscles."

Abby was sinking and he hoped that meant she was getting tired again, "You ever read _Heart of __Darkness_?"

"The horror, the horror."

She grinned at him over her shoulder, "It's a very Goth book, maybe the best one ever."

"The impenetrable darkness of human nature and the inherent savagery of society, Ally? Pretty strong stuff for a perky lab rat." He felt like he might have known her favourite would be something so far out of left-field and yet so amazingly appropriate. Sometimes he felt like Marlow to her Kurtz, following her into the unknown depths of strange new lands, unseen by any non-Goth eyes. With a little less crazy and genocide, obviously.

"I can be legit _and_ perky," Abby was insisting.

He held back a laugh, "I didn't say you couldn't."

She was quiet a moment and he'd almost closed his eyes when she thought of something else, "Was there ever a movie of _Heart of Darkness_?"

"It was supposed to be Orson Welles' first film when he came to Hollywood, but RKO got scared of the budget and the scope of the thing. It would have been really cool, too, he was going to shoot it all in first person point of view. So the camera was Marlow and the audience experiences everything like _they're_ Marlow. I wonder how long it took before someone actually did that after he thought of it."

"Mmm," her cheek came to rest on his ribs.

"Am I boring you?"

"No, professor."

He let himself brush fringe from her forehead, smiling stupidly in the dark, "Want to teach ourselves hand-springs in the yard tomorrow?"

"Yes, professor."

Tony felt swelled up with the giddiness of how great she was, "Awesome. Good night."

"Love you," she mumbled happily.

"I love you too, Abs."

It was the first time since they'd arrived at the house that he'd broken his moratorium on her name.


	14. An Imminent Threat

14. An Imminent Threat

.

"It may be nothing," McGee couldn't help but open.

They were the same words the Director had used on him an hour before.

He'd been apprehensive (to understate it wildly) upon being called into her office, but his well-organised, linear mind reassured him that if anything truly catastrophic had happened, Gibbs would have been the one to learn of it first no matter how difficult he'd made himself to find.

Director Sheppard sat at an angle, her legs crossed and her head tilted speculatively, but she still wasn't managing to look at all casual. Her perfectly manicured fingers were white where they clenched in her lap. "This may be nothing, agent McGee," she'd said with the kind of offhandedness that was painfully not offhand.

He nodded dumbly, trying not to fidget or look down his nose or burst into stuttering nonsense. He had to stay cool, let everyone else know they could count on him. There had been only a handful of moments in his career he'd had to step up and be _the _guy instead of diligently plugging away in the background, blissfully following orders- he was using all stray brain-power to continually remind himself that he'd more or less managed on those occasions and could do this.

"Agent Daryl Weston has failed to check in this morning."

McGee stared, uncomprehending, "Ma'am?"

"He is the only person in the agency who knows where DiNozzo and Abby have gone to ground." She stood up and marched over to her windows, her back rigid, "He was chosen deliberately because he had no personal connection to anyone on your team and he has never worked any particularly high profile case. He was ground up trustworthy, but not much else. No distinctions. He once before went AWOL to rescue a little girl's teddy bear out of a creek and his CO is not worried about his tardiness yet, but his CO also doesn't know about the operation."

He felt liked he'd swallowed his tongue. Weston's boss may not be worried, but the director sure was. Her voice was chilly and no-nonsense but with a slight crackle of tension as she struggled for detachment, her face startlingly pale against her red hair. He didn't blame her. He and Ziva had been knee deep in sick-making files on the guys after Abby for the past month and he'd been having nightmares even when he was certain she was safely untraceable. He was starting to have nightmares when he was awake, though that might be expected with Gibbs on the warpath and increasingly impossible to be around. No one could talk to the man, not even about their thoughts on the case. McGee was half convinced he'd seen Ziva-the-unflappable start to flinch away from his snapping jaws.

"Not to be... to sound... why are you telling _me_, Director?" McGee wondered if even she was afraid to tell Gibbs.

She shot him a look, clearly reading his mind, "Gibbs doesn't need to know until it is an actual situation, I don't want to hit that particular panic button without confirmation. Tony's gone, you are the senior agent on the case. Go deal with it. Use your own judgement."

He had that sinking feeling of being totally out of his depth and the familiar conviction that he had made a serious error in choosing his career path. He hadn't felt it for some time, but it was back with a vengeance. That niggling voice that reminded him he'd never be a street-smart type, that he thought inside the box, that he was a lousy liar, that he couldn't intimidate a fly with his baby-face and noodly build, that he just didn't measure up. McGee had become practised at drowning it out with a laundry list of his none-too-shabby accomplishments and a reminder that he was still green and learning, but it was getting louder the more the weight of command responsibility fell on his shoulders.

'Tony's gone', she'd said, not 'unreachable in the field', just 'gone'. The choice of words smacked him as ominous, to say the least.

But Tony _was_ gone and McGee was on his own. He was at the rudder, because Gibbs had fire in his eyes and had long since stormed off to man the harpoons.

"Understood, Ma'am," was all he said.

Funny how it never seemed like DiNozzo did anything until he wasn't around and the whole place fell to pieces. Funny how McGee had started thinking Gibbs wasn't such terrifying person to have to deal with until Tony was not there to mellow him out by drawing most of the heavy artillery his own way. Or stand up to him.

McGee knew_ he_ wouldn't get in Gibbs face about anything unless it was literally life and death.

Which reminded him of the old argument he'd started having with himself when he got to know DiNozzo better and had ceased to be intimidated by him: was Tony unafraid to poke Gibbs with sticks because he was actually that stupid, or did he have balls made of titanium alloy?

There was always both. Either way, if DiNozzo made it back in one piece, McGee was going to give him a hug and a freaking medal. His unofficial job- to say nothing of his official one- was much harder than he made it look.

Meanwhile, Ziva was staring at him like he was something she'd found on the bottom of her shoe. "Nothing?" she repeated, incredulous, "Maybe nothing?"

"Weston has been absent-minded before," he tried to project calm authority and quiet dignity (taking a leadership model from Ducky rather than from his two Alpha Male direct superiors- one had to know where one's limitations lay, or rather, one learned after embarrassing oneself enough). "It's possible he got caught up in something and forgot to call in."

Ziva was even more flummoxed by this than by his first assertion, "Are there no standards in American Intelligence? If the man is that unreliable, he should not have been chosen to safeguard the lives of two of the agency's people: he should have been fired!"

"They thought he was perfect for it because he was so unlikely."

She threw up her hands.

McGee edged along the plasma screen beside his desk as Ziva spun in a small aggravated circle in front of it, "Do you think we should go check out his house first or just assume it's a situation and tell Gibbs?"

She froze. She met his eye and glared at him. Then she shrugged, "You are ranking officer, it is your call, McGee."

Man, she was playing dirty. He sighed heavily.

"I've got his address, let's go." _He better just be sick or have fallen down in the shower or anything but kidnapped by mercenaries and leading them right to... _"Gear up."

"Should we leave a note for Gibbs?"

He sighed even harder, "Yeah, why not." He wasn't planning on living to retirement anyway.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

Abby looked like Grace Kelly in _Rear Window_. Her blonde bob was swept back in a mock up-do, her make-up was low-key and old fashioned, and her full cocktail dress flared out from a tiny cinched waist. The sweetheart neckline had involved terse discussion and Tony operating the airbrush with his hand over his eyes, but the end result was that she looked as perfect as the late Princess had ever looked. Perfecter.

He'd debated trying to find a white tuxedo so he could look like Connery's Bond and match her in sheer pizazz (not to mention star power), but knew it was probably way too much like something he'd do for him to let Tommy Honeycut do it. Besides, they would draw more than enough stares from Abby looking like ten million bucks without his being flamboyant alongside her. He'd had to settle for a red silk shirt and a sport coat with black slacks. Not his favourite, in fact borderline tragically nineties-reminiscent, but it was cover-appropriate and he imagined he'd fit in reasonably well with the local folk. Red was a good colour on him, at the very least.

If he had his way, all evening events would be either club wear or white tie. Tony loved white tie, it was the only thing better than a military uniform for transforming any old schlub into a dapper motherfucker. Quasimodo could get a date in white tie. Or a double-breasted chalkstripe, but now he was getting sidetracked.

Unfortunately, the county's summer fête was just not classy enough to call for a strict dress code. More the pity.

More also the pity that pot luck meals were always such a crap shoot, because they'd taken too long to get ready and he hadn't eaten all day and he was pretty sure this casserole was made out of Alphagettis and hot dogs. He abandoned his fork in despair.

Some kind of folk-ish pop song was playing, but it had a slow, traditional waltz beat and couples were rising from the little clusters of tables and making their way to the centre of the hall. He knew he was going to ask before the observation was fully formed, she'd known too because she met his eyes as he looked up. They smiled conspiratorially at each other and stood in unison.

Abby seemed so much smaller without her platforms, without her spikes and her attention-arresting clothes and her lab coat swirling around her like a cape. His hand, splayed at her waist, almost spanned her entire back and he felt like he might break her. Not a worry he'd ever wrestled with before, considering Abby's enormous personality usually made the idea a difficult one to conceive. Her fingers were slim and cool lightly clasped in his and he remembered the strength of which they were capable with a smile. They waltzed sedately, the make-shift ballroom lights sparkling off her hair and the costume jewels she wore around her neck.

Tony felt like the room was shrinking, like they were in one of those Spanish soap operas with the Vaseline on the lens. She looked so softened by the natural make-up, the blonde hair, the dress- but he still knew every bit of her face, every shade of jade in her eyes. Her smile lines, as familiar as his own reflection, still warming his heart like it was the very first time he'd seen them.

"Have I told you lately that you're a beautiful woman?"

"Not today," Abby smiled wider, tilting her head to shoot him a coy look from beneath her eyelashes.

_Good God, we're right on the edge aren't we. _"You are an intensely beautiful woman." _And I don't care._

She looked away across the dance floor and he didn't fight the urge to pull her a little closer, "What?"

"Nothing."

"Ally..."

"Did you ever think so before?" She was profoundly embarrassed, he could tell. Abby of the 'looks don't matter' to the point of coming around the other side philosophy. Abby full of confidence. Abby who was sometimes fragile and needed a flatulent stuffed hippo and many hugs to feel all right again. He shook his head fondly.

He leaned forward to whisper, his lips almost touching her ear, "You've always been beautiful, Abs. I miss your collar and your tats and your pigtails. They're so you."

If he didn't know better, he'd say she was on the point of blushing. "Didn't think you were into the scene."

"I'm not," he retorted evenly, "I'm into you."

There was a moment of total mutual understanding as the simple truth of that comment hung in the air. They both knew exactly what he'd said and that it could not be elegantly taken back. He didn't want to take it back. Her mouth was ruby red and glistening full. He leaned down to brush it with his and she stared into his eyes as they turned to the music; he was dizzy and hot and terrified. They drifted even closer, spinning.

Neither of them could, in good conscience, take credit for initiating the kiss. It wasn't something either of them decided to do, it was simply and all at once what both of them did, meeting exactly in the middle of the space which had been between them. At first, they pressed together fiercely, desperately, Tony's thumb just beneath Abby's ear, his long fingers following the graceful curve of her throat; Abby's fist clenched in the fabric of his lapel, her chin tilting further and further upward as she melted against him.

They drew apart, their eyes meeting for a moment before they came near again, tentative, their lips moving gently against each other in exploration. Abby's tongue slid along the inside of his bottom lip like velvet, tasting of the sparkling wine she'd been drinking. He felt like he'd been let back into the Garden.

Five years, she thought, five years he'd been sexy and strong and interesting and sometimes terribly chivalrous and always loyal and always the closest possible modern equivalent to a knight in shining armour and it had taken her this long, it had taken multiple threats on her life, just to realise that he wasn't just abstractly wonderful and deserving of someone who saw that- he was wonderful for her who did see that. He was different from everyone, literally everyone, she'd ever been close to and somehow he was perfect. She felt feverish, she had chills, she wanted to cry, she kissed him harder.

"You're an absurdly handsome man, have I told you that?"

"Not really directly," her cheek was pressed against his collar bone, her nose tucked into his throat and both her arms around his middle as they swayed to the music. She felt more than heard that he was slightly out of breath, "but I know you're not into it."

"Tommy. I am _not_ not into it

"You seemed to hold it against me," he didn't quite argue.

Abby sighed into his chest, "Well, it struck me as unfair."

"My bad."

The song changed. They didn't notice.

,.,.,.,.,.,.

They walked home, giggling in the dark, and she had a death grip on his hand the whole way. As they neared the top of their driveway, she stopped dead. Tony caught himself up sharply behind her.

"Pick me up."

He just looked at her, puzzled.

Abby turned around and raised her arms towards him, "Carry me over the threshold."

Tony's mouth made a little 'o' of shock and he seemed dumbfounded into speechlessness.

She wiggled her fingers encouragingly and smiled.

He shook his head once, put an arm under her knees and swept her up, "Dibs not telling Gibbs."


End file.
